A recent e-newsletter from Collin County Commissioner Joe Jaynes included an update on the project to get rural roads paved – a goal of the commissioner. Having traveled on many of the back roads, chasing church steeples or trying to find yet another pioneer cemetery, I can support this noble idea. I have been down far too many mud roads – ones where you have to back out of them because they are too narrow and overgrown to try to do a three point turn.
Good roads have long been a rallying cry for those in rural parts of the South. That is what created the Farm-to-Market roads system, with funding starting in the 1920s. Difficult to believe that there are still unimproved roads in one of the fastest growing counties in the Nation, but that is the reality.
Here is a photo from our collection showcasing Weston, Texas, May 13, 1913.
This scene shows approximately 25 early automobiles, mostly Model T Ford's, in front of the business district in Weston. This appears to be a rally or race, as Weston would never have had this many cars (or people) at the time. One of the T's has a sign or pennant on it indicating it is from Celina. Drivers stand around their cars while women and children are in a group in the back right side of the image. The dirt road and one very crooked telephone pole help establish the time period. Farming is the economic lifeblood of rural Collin County: the background acreage of corn probably played a role in allowing farmers to purchase those fancy horseless carriages. On the left is a shoe store and the Stiles General Store. How about that porch railing on the shoe store?
Bow Bros Photographers captured this scene, and the Bessie H. Kinard Estate donated it to the History Center.
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