Beloved souvenir of the week

As you might have gathered, we're big fans of old-fashioned roadside souvenirs. One of my favorites is this beauty from the Devil's Rope Museum, a barbed wire depository in McLean, Texas. It's a stunningly crafted shellacked plank of Texas with a deluxe rope border and a fine sampler from legendary barbed wire innovators J. Brinkerhoff, T.V. Allis, D.C. Stover and C.D. Rogers. I don't remember what I paid for it, but it was worth every penny. It's so beloved, in fact, that it's hung on my office partition just above the equally beloved "God Bless This Camper" souvenir plate...a spot of no higher honor, barb none.

Before we leave McLean, Texas: Fill 'er up!

McLean, Texas is abundant with true Americana and eccentric roadside attractions. One of its best is this beautifully restored 1927 cottage-style Phillips 66 gas station, commissioned after the U.S. Government decided to create a little coast-to-coast highway known as Route 66.  This site hearkens back to a time when a gas station was a little oasis for road-weary travellers looking to fill their tanks and radiators and mop their brows and be greeted by friendly bow-tie wearing servicemen who wiped your windshield and offed you a map. Maybe the Joads stopped here on their way out of Oklahoma. 

McLean, Texas's Devil's Rope Museum: Belly up to the barb

The tiny burg of McLean, Texas offers one of the best quirky museums we've ever been to: The Devil's Rope Museum. In it, they tell the history of barbed wire. That's right, barbed wire. How could something so mundane be so significant you ask? Well, barbed wire revolutionized the keeping of livestock and the settlement of the west itself. Joseph Glidden's invention in the 1860s created a frenzy that produced 570 barbed wire design patents. That's a lot of patents, you know. Somehow this was deemed nonreligious, so religious groups (God bless 'em) protested, giving the pointy stuff the name "the devil's rope." Then, the Fence Cutter Wars (I'm not making this up) ensued between land owners and trail drivers. The land owners won, and barbed wire was here to stay. There are many different patterns of barbed wire and once you look at them, they're like snowflakes. Hard, painful, razor-sharp snowflakes. There is a devoted following of barbed wire collectors who are part of the larger fence-enthusiasts group. You can't get much more Americana than this place, and it's on Route 66, to boot. Also housed in the same building, a former brassier factory, is the Texas Old Route 66 Museum and a swell gift shop. Here's their website: http://www.barbwiremuseum.com/DevilsRopeMuseum.htm

The beautiful decay of McLean, Texas

A cool British dude who calls himself The Old Nail has a great blog with the wonderful title of "Beautiful Decay." (http://rackandruin.blogspot.com/). I love that phrase. There's something poignant and melancholy about seeing something once new and gleaming falling into disrepair and neglect. We passed through the little town of McLean, Texas, 75 miles east of Amarillo, on I-40 and Old Route 66, in 2004 and it had some awesome decay. According to their website, "in 1927, McLean profited from the oil boom, becoming a major shipping point for area livestock, gas, and oil. And, in the very same year, Route 66 insured the town’s growth for the next several decades. During the golden age of Route 66, McLean boasted 16 service stations, six motels and numerous cafes. Oklahoma based Phillips Petroleum Company built its first Texas service station in McLean in 1927. By 1940, McLean had six churches, a newspaper, fifty-nine businesses, and a population of more than 1,500." Unfortunately, today McLean isn't as prosperous as it was in those glory days, but it's still a very cool place to visit for fans of roadside Americana. They've done an awesome job restoring that 1927 Phillips gas station, and they have one of the best quirky museums I've ever been to: The Devil's Rope Museum, which bills itself as the world's largest barbed wire historical museum. I'll get to those places in a later post, but first here's some very cool abandoned gas stations. Here's McLean's website: http://www.mcleantexas.org/index.html