Texas Forts Trail caravan recreates trip led by Gov. Connally 50 years ago

Abilene

Timothy Phillips, a living historian, answers questions at Fort Phantom Hill Thursday. About a dozen cars set out from Frontier Texas! to recreate the original Texas Forts Trail caravan taken by Gov. John Connally 50 years ago.

With proclamations and speeches, the Texas Forts Trail 50th Anniversary Caravan was sent on its 650-mile journey Thursday.

The trip — with stops at eight frontier forts, one Spanish presidio and numerous sites in between — will zip through 29 counties along the Texas Forts Trail in three days.

Margaret Hoogstra, executive director of the Texas Forts Trail, speaks at Frontier Texas! Thursday. A group of about a dozen cars departed the museum to recreate the 1968 650-mile journey undertaken by Gov. John Connally to inaugurate the Texas trails program and boost tourism.

The Texas Forts Trail was one of 10 created by Texas Gov. John Connally and the Texas Highway Department to boost rural tourism in 1968, the year San Antonio hosted HemisFair '68.

The trails were resurrected in 1998 when the Texas Forts Trail Region was established.

Margaret Hoogstra, executive director of the Texas Forts Trail, said the purpose of the nonprofit organization is "to help our rural communities with economic development and community development through heritage and cultural tourism."

The 50th anniversary caravan recreates a two-day trip led by Connally along the Texas Forts Trail at the end of July 1968.

Documenting the trip

Among the 40 or so people on the anniversary trip are nine Hardin-Simmons University students in Dr. Tim Chandler's survey of mass media class. The students are documenting the trip on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Their social media posts can be seen through links from the forts trail's website at texasfortstrail.com.

College students and others stand beside one of the chimneys at Fort Phantom Hill Thursday. A caravan of about a dozen cars are recreating the 1968 tour of the Texas Forts Trail undertaken by Gov. John Connally.

The students will learn how to use social media to market or advertise events such as the caravan, Chandler said.

HSU student Malia Williams, a sophomore from Abilene, said she would be busy filming, editing and producing videos for YouTube each day, but she was looking forward to the trip.

"It's a great opportunity to see the eight forts all over Texas," she said.

More:Caravan to travel 650 miles on Texas Forts Trail

The group departed from Frontier Texas! following proclamations read by Mayor Anthony Williams and County Commissioner Chuck Statler.

State Rep. Stan Lambert also saw the group off.

"I was looking at a map of where you're going to go, what you're going to see, and we talk about in politics, we need more pragmatism, more common sense," Lambert said. "... The common sense that you had to end this trip at Perini's Steakhouse, that goes above and beyond."

With Fort Phantom Hill in the background, a caravan of vehicles drives along FM 600 Thursday to their next destination, Fort Griffin.

50 years ago

From left, Gov. John Connally, State Rep. Grant Jones, and Texas Historical Survey Committee director Truett Latimer sit in a stagecoach at Fort Griffin on July 29, 1968, during a tour of the Texas Forts Trail.

The first stop on the caravan Thursday — Fort Phantom Hill — was one omitted 50 years ago on Connally's trip on the newly created trail.

The Reporter-News chronicled that trip and reported: "Disappointing to area historians was the bypassing of Fort Phantom Hill, which was stricken from the Forts Trail when Jones County would not agree to pay $130 for trail signs, which the Texas Trails Commission had assessed as each participating county’s share.”

Articles noted that the governor gave the same speech at each stop. At the end of the first day, at a dinner at the Golden Stagecoach Restaurant at Old Abilene Town, the governor gave his eighth speech of the day.

Gov. John Connally eats peach ice cream in De Leon during a tour of the Texas Forts Trail, which had just been created in 1968 to promote rural tourism.

"This is only the beginning of what can be a great tourism industry,” Connally said at each stop in 1968. “The tourism industry in Texas brought in over $1.2 billion. Florida by comparison took in $4.8 billion.”

In 1967, according to Reporter-News clippings, Connally said Texas had 21 million out-of-state visitors, almost 1 million more than Florida. However, visitors to Florida stayed twice as long and spent twice as much, he said. If every tourist stayed in Texas one day longer it would bring in $120 million in tourism spending, the governor repeated.

Newspaper accounts of the tour noted how fast and furious the tour was:

"At the end of the second day the weary footsore tourists still found the spirit to applaud Gov. Connally when Brady Mayor Aubrey Davee introduced him as "a man destined to go places."

“'The mayor is about 48 hours too late,'" Connally cracked. 'I just got back.'"

From left, Abilene attorney Tom Gordon and Gov. John Connally talk with Abilene Mayor Ralph Hooks at a dinner July 29, 1968, at the Golden Stagecoach Restaurant at Old Abilene Town.

If you go

What: People are invited to join in or meet the Texas Forts Trail 50th Anniversary Caravan along the way.

More information: texasfortstrail.com

Schedule:

Friday

8 a.m.: Rally at Santa Fe Depot and Harvey House, Brownwood
9: Depart for Rochelle and Brady
9:55: Arrive at Heart of Texas Country Music Museum, Brady
10:30: Depart for Mason
11: Arrive at Fort Mason and Mason County Library
11:30: Depart for Menard
12:20 p.m.: Arrive at Presidio de San Saba, Menard
1:05: Depart for Fort McKavett
1:30: Arrive at Fort McKavett
2: Depart for Eldorado and San Angelo
3:15: Arrive at Fort Concho, San Angelo

Saturday

8 a.m.: Rally at Fort Concho
9: Depart for Robert Lee, Bronte and Fort Chadbourne
10:15: Arrive at Fort Chadbourne
11: Depart for Winters and Buffalo Gap
Noon: Arrive at Perini Ranch Steakhouse, Buffalo Gap
1:30 p.m.: Depart for Abilene
2 p.m: End at Frontier Texas!