DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Old Ingram, out in Kerr County. Now, settlers had already been trickling into this part of Texas before the Civil War even had a chance to reshape the world. And then, in 1879, a Church of Christ minister by the name of Reverend J.
C. W. Ingram came riding in from California with something on his mind.
He bought up the land at this very site from a pioneer settler named Abner McWhorter Morriss, and he didn't waste much time about what came next. Ingram opened a general store and a post office, and you know how it goes — where there's a store and a place to send a letter, people tend to show up. A community grew right up around that store, and for fifty years it thrived as a commercial center out here in the Hill Country.
Fifty years. That's not a flicker — that's a long, honest run. But then came the 1930s, and with them came a new highway constructed nearby.
And a new highway has a way of pulling the future along with it. Businesses began to relocate, and the original townsite gradually was abandoned. It happens — not with a bang, but with a slow drift down the road.
What's something, though, is what Old Ingram became on the other side of that silence. Today it's an arts center — studios, galleries, craft shops, gift shops. A place that once sold dry goods and postage now deals in something a little harder to weigh.
Not a bad second act for a town a minister from California started with a piece of land and a good idea.
What the marker says
Settlers began arriving in this vicinity prior to the Civil War. In 1879 the Reverend J. C. W. Ingram, a Church of Christ minister from California, bought the land at this site from pioneer settler Abner McWhorter Morriss. Ingram soon opened a general store and post office. A community grew around the store and thrived for fifty years as a commercial center. During the 1930s a new highway was constructed nearby, and the original townsite gradually was abandoned as businesses began to relocate. Today Old Ingram is an arts center with studios, galleries, craft and gift shops. (1983)