Story by Denise Gamino
Photos by Sarah Beal
Less than two weeks after an area-wide wildlife rehabilitation center opened a new state-of-the-art headquarters in Bastrop County, someone brought in a majestic symbol of America: a bald eagle. It was injured and underweight.
By Denise Gamino
Nearly 90 years ago, a widowed mother chose to starve to death in a Fayette County jail cell rather than die in the electric chair for the killing of a farmhand. She lost 150 fatal pounds. Before she died, Mary Dach wished aloud to someday be free, and to get a job in the jail that confined her. Perhaps she did.
When Hurricane Laura made landfall in the early hours of Aug. 27, 2020, its devastating winds, rain and storm surge left hundreds of thousands of people without power across Louisiana and East Texas. Central Texans dodged damage from this storm, which enabled Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative to help out hard-hit utilities.
BY CLAYTON STROMBERGER
As you drive down quiet, tree-lined Mulberry Avenue out on the southwestern edge of Luling, just past the high school football stadium, you come to an unadorned metal archway that reads, “The Luling Foundation,” and below that, “Est. 1927.” Passing under the arch, you’re simultaneously going backward and forward in time.
BY BEN WEAR
Dock Jackson grew up on the road to Houston. But back then, in the 1950s and 1960s, the “highway” from Austin to the coastal plains that passed through Bastrop was just a small-town street named Chestnut. From the front yard of his childhood home, Jackson could watch travelers making their heedless way through the town of about 3,000. After some time spent in Austin, Dallas and New York as a young man, he returned home and served 24 years on the Bastrop City Council.
By Clayton Stromberger and Denise Gamino
If you were born at least fourscore and seven or so years ago, and grew up in these parts, you may remember what it was like in 1939.
No one was in a huge rush back then. The highway speed limit was 45 mph — lower for trucks. More than half the state was rural. Kids in the country rode a horse to confirmation class. Air conditioning meant opening a window or sitting on the front porch with a hand-held fan from church. Screen time was for when the mosquitoes came back.