Texas Tourist Camp Complex

Duane's take

Now, this one comes straight from the official marker; let me put it in my own words for you. Somewhere around 1927, a local Wise County businessman by the name of E. F.

Boydston looked out at a former feed lot and saw something nobody else did. Not mud, not memories of livestock, opportunity. He paid four hundred dollars for that site, and before the year was out, he'd put up a wooden shed and a gas station right there on it.

Now, the traveling public was just starting to figure out this whole automobile thing, and Boydston, he was ready for them. He let folks pull in, build a campfire, sleep under the stars. By 1931, he'd added three wooden cabins with garages to sweeten the deal.

A proper little complex, growing right alongside the highway. Then 1935 rolls around, and Boydston gets ambitious. More cabins, more garages.

And that original wooden gas station, the one that started it all, he had it covered in petrified wood. The highway was being widened that same year, so the old girl got a new face and kept right on pumping. Kept on pumping, in fact, all the way to 1988, still in the hands of the Boydston family.

Back in 1929, Boydston had built a one-room frame building called the Texas Lunchroom. By 1935, that too got a new name: the Texas Cafe, and faced with stone to match the rest of the complex. They even built out a second floor for living quarters.

High school kids loved it, college students, families passing through, road-weary travelers just needing a hot plate and a moment to breathe. Then came the bypass. Built west of town, it quietly pulled the traffic away from this stretch, and by the 1960s, the cafe had gone quiet.

Closed up. The kind of silence that settles in when the road moves on without you. But here's where the story takes a turn.

In 1993, the Texas Cafe reopened. What Boydston started for four hundred dollars on a former feed lot, that wasn't done yet. This whole complex stands today as one of the few intact examples of tourist camps built across Texas in the mid-twentieth century.

A man, a feed lot, four hundred dollars, and the great American road. Turns out that's enough to make something last.

What the marker says

Local businessman E. F. Boydston (1888-1945) purchased this site, a former feed lot, in 1927 for $400. Recognizing a potential business opportunity in offering services to the traveling public, he built a wooden shed and gas station in 1927. Travelers were allowed to build campfires during overnight stays, and by 1931 Boydston added three wooden cabins with garages to the camp complex. The buildings later were faced with rock, and more cabins and garages were added in 1935. The original wooden gas station was covered with petrified wood in 1935 when the highway was widened and remained in operation by the Boydston family until 1988. The Texas Lunchroom, a one-room frame building, was built in 1929. Renamed the Texas Cafe in 1935 and faced with stone to match other buildings in the complex, it was enlarged to provide second-floor living quarters. Popular with local high school and college students, as well as families and the traveling public, it was closed in the 1960s after a highway bypass built west of town diverted traffic from this area. The cafe reopened in 1993. One of the few intact examples of tourist camps built throughout Texas in the mid-20th century, this property is significant for its association with the early development of automobile tourism.