All roads lead to Cleburne

By Pete Kendall/reporter@trcle.com

May 19, 2009 10:35 am

— Folks talk so much about the soon-to-be, maybe-someday Texas 121 that you’d almost think we’ve never had a super highway through Cleburne and Johnson County.
Well, we know that’s not true.
Our favorite of all time, Farm Road 4, begins at Grandview, winds through Cleburne and Acton, intersects Granbury, rushes like the Brazos River toward Lipan and meanders through Palo Pinto County before its terminus in Jacksboro.
It’s about as pretty a drive as you’ll find in Texas in the spring.
In the winter, with all those hills in Palo Pinto County, it’s about as dangerous a drive as there is in the southwest, though that hasn’t seemed to deter motorcyclists from peeling rubber hither and thither.
But I digress.
Another favorite road is Texas 174, featuring such pit stops as Meridian, Morgan and suburban Kopperl in Bosque County and Rio Vista, Cleburne and Joshua in Johnson County. The terminus is a stoplight in Burleson. Take your pick.
We’re also partial to Texas 171, which begins or ends, depending on your viewpoint, in Weatherford, dips through Cresson and Godley, shares Main Street in Cleburne with Texas 174, then follows the old Trinity and Brazos Valley road through Covington, Osceola and Hillsboro before branching off to Bynum, Malone, Hubbard and Mexia, proud home of the late Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith.
U.S. 67 is kind of fun, too, though not as obscure as we prefer. What U.S. 67 has that many of the others don’t have is a recorded history. Like in books.
According to a manuscript written by George R. Jordan — “A History Brief of U.S. Highway 67 Association, Inc., in 1928” — the United States Highway 67 Association was formed because of the invention of the automobile.
That makes sense. You wouldn’t build a highway for helicopters.
Construction in Texas extended the highway from Texarkana to Dallas, then to Duncanville, Cedar Hill, Midlothian, Venus, Alvarado, Keene and Cleburne.
We’ve been as far southwest as San Angelo on U.S. 67. If it goes further than that, we don’t care to know, though some apparently did at one time.
In 1929, a group of men, the founders of The U.S. Highway 67 Association, traveled the proposed U.S. 67 extension to Presidio, about 12 miles north of Guatemala.
This was in the beginning of the 1930 drought in Texas. After riding all day in the open Model T Fords, according to a story in our 2000 Millennium Celebration, the men wanted to take baths before going to a U.S. 67 Association supper and meeting at the McCamey Methodist Church.
One comedian pointed to a barrel of oil and made the statement, “You can buy a barrel of oil for 10 cents, but a barrel of water will cost you $5.”
This ended the question of the bath.
In Alvarado, history and maps tell us, the old U.S. 67 went past the square and up to College Hill to the old school. After passing the school, the road turned north, then west past Norman Springs to continue to Cleburne.
After an automobile accident on the square, the city council voted to pass a 15 mph speed limit.
One resident remembered a sign on the square that read, “DRIVE SLOW, SEE OUR TOWN. ... DRIVE FAST, SEE OUR JAIL.”
At any rate, a new section of U.S. 67 was constructed to bypass downtown Alvarado in the early ’60s.
Other Alvarado thoroughfares preceded U.S. 67.
According to authoritative research by Dorothy Swartz and Derik Moore, an early road from Alvarado to the north went past Jack Morton’s Western Wear Store, through Otis Percifield’s pasture and to the north past Sam Houston Myers homestead and northwest toward Egan and Caddo Peak and on north to Fort Worth and Birdville.
Directly north of Morton’s store was a spring of water, later named Norman Springs and Norman Grove.
The ruts from this early road are allegedly still visible in the Percifield pasture. Mr. Layfette Norman had bought this land after the Civil War. It had been Mr. Balch’s land grant.
Early travelers would stop to rest, water their horses and get a cool drink for themselves.
Mr. and Mrs. Norman were friendly people, as are the majority of Alvaradoans, and the citizens named the spring after them.
In 1858, the Johnson County Commissioner’s Court requested a road be built between Wardville and Buchanan to Alvarado and on to Waxahachie.
As was customary in those days, according to the millennium history, this road was formed by smoothing the banks of the creeks and cutting trees so there would be room for wagons and buggies.
During this period in history, these roads were not finished and were extremely muddy during rainy weather.
Today this is County Road 319 and was south of present-day U.S. 67.
Willard Robertson remembered living on this road and driving his wagon to Cleburne and Alvarado to sell produce from his family’s farm.
A road north toward Burleson and Fort Worth was formed and topped in 1920 to make traveling easier. At that time it was called the “Old King’s Trail.” Today it is CR 600.
This was later named U.S. 81 and went south down Cummings Street and on to Grandview along present-day CR 401.
In the early days of Alvarado, the main roads toward Dallas had only one or two lanes and were used by travelers like Bonnie and Clyde to buy, trade and steal in Dallas and other towns. Many of these early roads had originally been buffalo trails.
Watch where you step.