Brick Streets in Granger

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in 1884, a couple of area landowners named A. S.

Fischer and W. C. Belcher sat down and platted a townsite called Granger.

They weren't guessin' in the dark, either. A rail line had already been laid two years prior, and Fischer and Belcher could see the potential plain as a panhandle sunrise. Their town plan called for a main street a hundred feet wide.

A hundred feet. They named it Davilla, and businesses and dwellings started appearin' along it before long. By 1910, Granger was genuinely booming.

Cotton marketing and shipping, a combined cotton compress and cottonseed oil mill, an ice factory, a waterworks, churches, banks, schools. The whole picture. Now, a hundred feet of street sounds impressive, and it was, right up until it rained.

Then that vast expanse of Davilla became something the marker describes, with admirable restraint, as a colossal mud puddle. You can imagine it. Every wheel, every boot, every poor soul trying to conduct commerce on Davilla Street after a good Texas storm.

And then came the automobile, which made the whole muddy situation even more pronounced. So the decision was made: pave it with bricks. That summer, the summer of 1912, crews got to work.

And when they finished, the weekly Granger News did not underplay the moment. The paper proclaimed that Granger was said to boast the distinction of being the only city in the state of less than five thousand inhabitants that has paved streets, or that is paving them. The Business League of Granger liked that distinction so much they held annual good roads and pavement celebrations to keep promotin' Granger as a progressive community.

Here is where the story turns, just a little. The very thing that made those brick streets feel so necessary, the automobile, well, it went on to diminish the importance of the railroad. And Granger had built its prosperity on that railroad.

As cars made it easier to reach larger cities and towns, population began driftin' away. Now, those remaining brick streets are still there on Davilla. They aren't a footnote.

They're a reminder of a time when Granger was the center of things, when a hundred-foot street wasn't wide enough to hold the town's ambition, and when a local newspaper could brag on pavement and mean every word of it.

What the marker says

Area landowners A. S. Fischer and W. C. Belcher platted the townsite of Granger in 1884, in anticipation of its potential to develop along the rail line that had been laid two years previously. The town plan called for a 100-foot-wide main street, named Davilla, along which businesses and dwellings soon appeared. By 1910 Granger's economy was booming. It was an important cotton marketing and shipping point for the region, with a combined cotton compress and cottonseed oil mill, an ice factory, a waterworks, churches, banks and schools. The vast expanse of Davilla Street proved to be a problem, however, especially after rainstorms when the street became a colossal mud puddle. With the increasing popularity of the automobile, the issue of Davilla Street was even more pronounced, and the decision was made to pave it with bricks. The job of paving Davilla Street took place in the summer of 1912. The weekly Granger News proclaimed, "Granger is said to boast the distinction of being the only city in the state of less than 5000 inhabitants that has paved streets, or that is paving them." The Business League of Granger held annual "good roads and pavement celebrations" to continue its promotion of Granger as a progressive community. Ironically, the proliferation of the automobile diminished the importance of the railroad, upon which Granger had based its prosperity, and the community began to lose its population to larger cities and towns. The remaining brick streets continue as a reminder of Granger's early prosperity and its role as a center of commerce. (2001)