Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Another reason I love the Texas Big Country

OK, I just remember the elk were used to the 1,000 trucks a day. Wouldn't run if you stopped.

That was in the oil patch area. Never went on the westside.

haven't been to Haskell since my grandmother's funeral fifteen years ago....looked like it was trying to dry up and blow away, they'd built a Walmart in Stamford that was killing off a lot of the local trade. My aunt Odell and Uncle Jewel had Bynum's store on the courthouse square....it's been gone for a long long time. Rule was working its way toward being a ghost town.

I've seen them there myself.

I'm from Hamlin. Grandparents "ranch" (only one section) out by Rotan (actually Roundtop if you're an OLD timer) sees Double Mountain (Sammy Baugh country).

Big Country is new to me too.

Call that a mountain???

compared to what surrounds it, yeah....those are mountains.

Where my trailer is outside of Brownwood, when the dish wasn't working I could get a few local tv channels. One was out of Abilene, they kept calling themselves big country. That's the only reason I had heard it before.

I may have mislabeled it. I took the pic just south of Snyder. No well defined boundaries for the Big Country, but since Snyder seems a little far south to claim the Panhandle name, I figured it to be included in The Big Country. No matter which region claims it, I love it up here.

John

my buddy headed your way next weekend to his place off FM565 near that little ghost town....hoping it doesn't warm up by then....got a call today from the guy who checks on the place, had two dozen hogs in sight from the front porch, but he wasn't heeled so they got a pass. deer were moving though. wish I could go this time, but got to get ready for duck opener here.

Look at the first picture Hondo posted of the pretty sunset.Imagine that's all there is for many miles.Then.....You can see these two HILLS out in the middle of nowhere.

I explained that it was a poor picture.There are better views of it from other directions,but I've never stopped to take pictures from them.

I'm leaving Thursday for the opening weekend. I'm twenty miles SE of Brownwood on 590 I think is the road. I'll find out from some locals what the name of the ghost town is.
Best of luck on the ducks.

I think it's either Echo or Burkett....get the two mixed up...I think it's Echo that still has brick smokestacks standing and a handfull of people.

we need another front or two to get some ducks down, but it's always that way for the first split opener. ducks or no, it's one of those things a man's gotta do, taking daughter so I hope there's some action and not just a mosquito jamboree.

There is an Echo according to map quest deal.

ECHO, TEXAS (Coleman County). Echo, on State Highway 206 four miles northeast of Coleman in central Coleman County, developed around a store established in the 1870s. In 1881 William Dibrell bought the site as part of his purchase of the Miles and Gholson ranch and renamed it Echo for the echo that resounded on a cliff at Home Creek. The Echo post office opened in 1910. The population in 1940 was seventy-five, and the town had a post office and school. Since then both the school and the post office have closed. The population was sixteen from 1970 through 2000.

I think that's it....came across it while I was wandering around trying to find the ranch....which is about four miles away. I like ghost towns.......not all the ghosts had moved out, though.

That's my view from the front porch at the Ranch, here! I'm on the Double Mountain Fork, just 12 miles as the crow flies from the Double Mountains. I'm right next to Flat Top Mtn.
Mom was raised in Haskell & we have the old family farm that they settled on in 1870.
Dads people all settled in Aspermont in 1875. I still have the original deed to our home place on the River their. It's now the Mt. Olive Cematary. I live just south of Old Glory. No body out side of the Big Country has ever heard of Old Glory.

Stop telling every body where our Big Deer are!
And yes, this area of Texas has always been called "The Big Country"

I've heard of Old Glory.....my granddaddy told me it used to be called New Brandenburg when he was a boy and because of all the hostility to Germans during WWI they changed the name to demonstrate their loyalty to their new country. nice story, if it's true.

how many folks remain there today?

It's said that Coronado used the Double Mountains as a Land Mark when first exploring this area. Also rumored that the Spanish Conquistadors had a big copper mine right here on the Brazos. It's a known fact that the Buffalo Hunters used the Double Mountains to find their way back to Rath City, about where Hamlin is now. Rath City was a early frontier trading post where the Buffalo hunters traded their hides. Flat Top Mounatin was a sacred meeting area for the Commanches & Kiowas who kicked the early Spanish Explorer's ass all the way back to N.M. along with the lowly Apaches.
Lots of neat history in the area. My Grandad picked up cigar boxes full of arrowheads on top of ole Flat Top when he was a kid, here, living on our Ranch.

Yes! That's a true story. Grandad said all the Germans, him included, thought they would be rounded up & put in camps like they did the Japenese. Old Glory has maybe 10 residents left, now. The population was over 2500 during WW I. Only a Post Office & 1 Church left now. No Gas station left where Grandad used to buy his beer. We still own my Great Grandmothers house in Old Glory. It's not worth anything because no one wants to live there. BTW, Stonewall County is still the most un-populated County in Texas. I like it that way!

Looks like a scene straight out of The Searchers. Mom and Dad used to fish Possum Kingdom all the time.