BY ED CROWELL
When Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative powered the first light bulbs in rural Central Texas in 1939, the World’s Fair in New York was unveiling an all-electric home with a dazzling kitchen, complete with a refrigerator, electric range, dishwasher, coffee maker, garbage disposal, food mixer and an automatic toaster.
BY BEN WEAR
Dock Jackson grew up on the road to Houston. But back then, in the 1950s and 1960s, the “highway” from Austin to the coastal plains that passed through Bastrop was just a small-town street named Chestnut. From the front yard of his childhood home, Jackson could watch travelers making their heedless way through the town of about 3,000. After some time spent in Austin, Dallas and New York as a young man, he returned home and served 24 years on the Bastrop City Council.
By Clayton Stromberger and Denise Gamino
If you were born at least fourscore and seven or so years ago, and grew up in these parts, you may remember what it was like in 1939.
No one was in a huge rush back then. The highway speed limit was 45 mph — lower for trucks. More than half the state was rural. Kids in the country rode a horse to confirmation class. Air conditioning meant opening a window or sitting on the front porch with a hand-held fan from church. Screen time was for when the mosquitoes came back.
Story by Ed Crowell
Military troops learn to live and sleep in unusual spots — from inside a desert foxhole to wedged between a rock and a hard place.
Now, some Texas soldiers will have an opportunity to rest, comfortably, in a revolutionary new barracks in Bastrop County.
At Camp Swift — the National Guard’s main training facility in Texas — some troops will sleep in the largest structure in North America built by a giant robotic 3D printer.