Williamson County Historical Commission
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863-2202
"The Mail Must Go Through,' By Horse, of Course"
Muddy
Roads of Yesteryear
Muddy Roads of Yesteryear
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Narratives from the Georgetown's
Yesteryears Book |
Horse and Buggy Ways
There was a time
when going someplace meant walking or using the kind of horsepower that
used oats for fuel and went clip-clop down the street. Horses and mules
were characters with minds of their own. Even the roads challenged the
driver and the latest rig.
Up to Their Knees in Mud
Ruby L. Snowden:
Tyler Hunter, Interviewer
First, I can
remember up here in Georgetown, they didn't even have paved streets, it
was mud streets. And it got bad, too, I tell you. They had the horse
wagons and buggies and things parked right around the square up there,
and they had a place to tie them. Even cotton wagons, where they brought
cotton to the gins. . . . We lived out, my dad and I and our family
lived out, three miles south of Georgetown, and at Christmas time one
year, he had to put four mules to the front wheels of the wagon to come
in and get our groceries and Christmas things. He just had to come get
it . . . they bogged up to their knees in mud coming in on that Rabbit
Hill Road.
"Muddy Streets"
Otha Horger
Ullrich - Interviewer: Lea Ann Sikes
No streets were graveled or paved [when she came here in 1909]. The
streets were just plain black mud up to here when it rained a long
spell. Somebody asked me how did you get around down town when it
rained? They had stepping stones, flat rocks from this corner to the
next one and instead of having sidewalks in front of the stores like
they have now, they were built up from the ground with planks, up even
with the door and then all this in here was filled with gravel. They
took long rocks and set them down in the ground in a row on each side
and would fill in between them with gravel. I can show you the remains
of one of those sidewalks right at the end of this block.
That's where you ruined your new shoes. You couldn't walk in the mud
without getting mud up above your high-top shoes and laced ones later,
laced way up to here.
BUGGY TROUBLES
Tullia Ischy:
John Martin, Interviewer
They had dirt
roads, and when it was muddy, you couldn't go very far. Way back there,
when I was just a kid, we'd come to town with the mules and the hack. It
was two-seated, like a buggy with two seats. It would be so muddy, there
would be ruts cut 'where you just have to stay in them ruts, and if you
met somebody, they was hard to get out of....
We kids had more accidents with our buggy and horse than we ever had car
accidents. We had to go about four or five miles to school and we had a
horse that we drove to the buggy. One time we come home, it was snowing
and awfully cold. It was hard for us to even see. It was snowing, and we
was trying to keep the snow out of our faces, and this horse we always
used, had one eye out. Every time he'd see anything, he'd shy and jump.
There was a log, a tree, laying on the ditch side next to the fence.
When we got along there by that thing, our horse shied and jumped and,
when he did, the shafts came out from under the buggy he didn't turn us
over that time he pulled loose from the buggy and, of course, he went on
home. There was three of us. We weren't really hurt, so we just started
walking on home. After while, some of the neighbors along the road
called and told Dad they saw us walking and our horse going home. My
Daddy and my sister's husband got on their horses and come to meet us.
We were not hurt much, only scared to death.
Another time it happened, we hadn't got away from school very far, and
the shafts come loose up there under the buggy, but my brother held onto
the reins and didn't let our horse get away from us. He pulled the front
wheels on, and, of course, my brother held on to the wheels and he
wasn't hurt, but it just dropped down.
When it rained a lot we had to stay home as we had to cross Berry's
Creek and there were no bridges in them days on the country roads.
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"`The Mail Must Go
Through,' By Horse, of Course" |
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"The Mail Must Go Through,'
By Horse, of Course"
Pat Brady: -
Interviewer Sam Brady
I started
carrying the mail on a rural route on September 15, 1919. I bought a
buggy from Sam Harris, a brother-in-law, and bought an old horse, I
called him "Roan." Old Roany, he was a very slow horse, suited my
temperament trying to get on with carrying the mail. My route was 241/2
miles long in those days. That was about an average route for horse and
buggy, because all my roads were muddy, mud roads, dirt roads. There
weren't any paved roads. I had one little stretch, `bout a mile, of
gravel road, when I carne down Rabbit Hill. The roads were real narrow,
tall weeds and brush on all sides. I had an open buggy, and I also had
to have a two-wheel cart. I used the cart in the winter time and the
buggy in the summer. That cart was so hard on a horse's back. I used a
pad on his back, but still the weight of that two-wheel gig bouncing on
him made his back get sore. It was so hard to keep him healed up. Some
of the horses I drove in later years were muley and they'd go to kicking
and I'd have all the slats kicked out under my seat. When I'd get to
these bad mud holes I'd have to get out and tie my single-tree down on
each end with a heavy strap so the horse wouldn't break my single-tree.
That's how bad they were. Had one bad mud hole got so bad I couldn't go
through because my horse would flounder in it. One man on horseback was
going to show me how easy it was to go through there, and he floundered
his horse clear up to his belly. Had to get some mules to pull him out.
Had another horse, "01' Snyder," to back my gig back over the lower end
of the high concrete causeway bridge at McNutt's Branch when the river
was on a rise. 01' Snyder was scared to death of cars. Just as we
started across the bridge, here came a Model "T" Ford. Snyder began
shaking and quivering and backing up. He backed me and the cart, and all
tr-14 mail, over the edge of the bridge just dangling there before I
could get him stopped. I'd finally get him started again, and here that
car would come at us again. We had a bad time before I finally got him
across, but I'd. cut him across the back with the buggy whip, and he'd
go to kicking out the slats. I had originally bought 01' Snyder from Jay
Thomas for $125.00, which was a pretty big price for a horse in those
days. Later I sold him to Will Hardy who was a government tick inspector
and Will rode him as a saddle horse for a number of years.
A SURREY, A BUGGY, AND A HACK
Tommye B.
Jefferson: Mike Lade, Interviewer
We had something fancy in those days. I don't know if you know anything
about a surrey. It has two seats in it and had the tassels all around,
and then we had the curtains that you could put in there. We had that.
And we had a buggy and then a hack. It was a little like a pickup truck
in the back of it. Then after that, we got a Model A.
YOU EITHER HOOFED
IT OR RODE
Tillman Barron:
Mark Graves, Interviewer
Of course, then, you either hoofed it or rode a horse or had the horse
and buggy like Grandfather, who lived the other side of us. Grandfather
Kolby, on Mother's side, was a Dane. He always kept a horse and buggy
and everybody else would have a horse and buggy or a surrey.
I had an aunt and they were pretty well fixed, we thought. They had a
nice surrey and always a good horse. If Mother had some place to go,
like to Ladies' Aid Society, Aunt Dell would come over and get Mother
and they'd ride down to the church. That was the method of getting
around.
The streets were all "macadamized," they called it, gravel and then run
over by an iron wheel. There was no rubber tires. The farm wagons and
buggies had iron wheels. Some of the buggies or surreys had what you
called hard rubber, a wheel with a hard rubber tire on it no air. That
would pack the streets down and they did have some type of roller. They
didn't have grader blades or anything like that. They'd have a big
shovel or something. They'd just manually spread it out, and they would
run over it with this roller to kind of even it up and make it look like
a street. We'd get some rain and that stuff would set up pretty good. It
would be real hard.
In the summertime, when there'd be a whole lot of wagons this was big
cotton country back in those days they would go to the cotton yard out
here to store their cotton that they'd ginned, and these farm wagons
would cut up this rock [street] and it'd be dry and be real dusty. I
know as a kid, barefooted, we'd like to run down the street and get our
feet in that dust.
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Pardon our dust - we're under construction and we will have more information forthcoming.