Fort Bend Model Railroad Club

The FBMRC has some amazing pictures of an amazing multi-year, long term project to model the Sugar Land area Railroad. This model looks very detailed and well done and shows many of the features of the old photographs I’ve been reviewing and posting here.

Speaking of old photographs. The two photos below are from their web site. Take note of two items. 1. The water tower. This tower is still in place and is shown in some other old photos that I'll post in the upcoming days. In the pictures below, you can see two water towers, but only one is still in place. I almost couldn't find it, but then saw the reflection of the tower's legs in Oyster Creek (second picture below). 2. The railroad traversing what is not Sugar Lakes and Williams Trace. This R/R shows up on my Garmin GPS III+ that I’ve had for years; now I understand why.

1937 View of Sugar Mill form the South

1937 North View of Mill 
1937 View of Sugar Mill from the North

1937 South View of Mill 

Imperial Mercantile Co.

The following article from The Hand Book of Texas Online describes how the mercantile came to be:

Sugar Land, where all of the land and businesses were owned by the Kempner-Eldridge partnership, soon attracted a stable population largely made up of Germans and Czechsqqv from the Schulenberg-Flatonia area of Texas. The firm built homes and provided medical treatment for its employees, organized the Imperial State Bank in 1907, and established the Imperial Mercantile Company, a company store, a paper mill, various retail stores, a cotton gin, and a feed mill. The Sugar Land Manufacturing Company operated an acid plant, produced Imperial vinegar and pickles, and was involved in meatpacking, canning, and the processing of a variety of agricultural crops. In 1911 the firm built a plant for the Sealy Mattress Company as part of an effort to attract other manufactures and later completed a plant for the periodical Texas Farm and Industrial News, which became the Texas Commercial News. Convict labor worked the Ellis Plantation until 1914, when the company sold the property to the state of Texas as a prison farm, and for a time thereafter convicts continued to produce sugar (see PRISON SYSTEM). In 1917 the company merged the Imperial Sugar Company and Cunningham Sugar Company to form a new Imperial Sugar Company. Sugarland Industries was organized in 1919 as a trust estate to own and operate the conglomerate of Sugar Land businesses as departments or subsidiaries, and Imperial Sugar Company became a department in the new institution. Kempner and Eldridge remained the sole owners. Gus D. Ulrich served as general manager. Subsidiaries in time included Sugarland Motor Company, Sugar Land Truck Lines, and Texas National Warehouse Company. Affiliated firms included Belknap Realty, Alcorn and Foster Farms, Fort Bend Cattle Company, and Sugar Land Telephone. In 1924 the company was reorganized as a $5 million corporation, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s it successfully fought efforts of the Sugar Trust to control production as well as competition from the Texas Sugar Refining Company at Texas City.

A good read on Sugar Land can be found at Wikipedia.

Changes on the street from 1929 to present

Another old picture from Head's Bunker. This one shows the street in front of the old mill and the old General Merchandise store. From what I’ve heard, the company paid employees in company Script (as shown below) and the script was used in the company store to purchase supplies and groceries. Looks like we’ve got trees and a parking area now where the old store once stood.


ca. 1929 Imperial Mercantile Co. 



Changes on the Street 


Imperial Mercantile Co. script for purchasing goods at the company store. 

As a point of interest and to credit the source(s), the old pictures are scanned from the book "Fort Bend County Sesquicentennial 1822-1972" Published in 1972 by the Fort Bend County Sesquicentennial Association, Richmond, Texas. The newer pictures were taken by me with an Olympus D-460 Zoom 1.3 magapixel camera. I noticed that the City of Sugar Land used the Mercantile picture above on their home page too.

Imperial Sugar Company Property Update

The city of Sugar Land has a page set up for updates to the project:

https://svrch13.sugarlandtx.gov:5202/forms/imperialinfo1.htm

There is an article in the Southwest Sun news paper about the plans, but they don't seem to allow direct linking without a "premium" membership", so i've removed that link.

UPDATE:

It appears from reading the Fort Bend Sun, the article caused a delay to the process since it had more information on the development than anyone at the city (or at the least more than the City Manager). This seems to have put a hold on things for now, but I'm sure it is temporary. My guess is the part about connecting the development to Town Center via. a water taxis has everyone a bit confused. I was wondering how they would do that too.

Sugarmill Pictures

Check out the difference 100 years or so makes. The picture below is courtesy of Head's Bunker. He sent me several others and I'll try to snap news pictures at the same angles as the old ones and post in the upcoming weeks. This should make for a good series of shots. Thanks Head.


ca. 1900 Sugarmill in Sugar Land, TX 


Old Sugar Mill 

It's starting, right in my backyard.

Thursday supreme court ruling has prompted the Mayor of Freeport, TX to start proceedings to close a 40 million/year business that has been in the same location since 1946. This is so that a private marina can be built thus bringing in more tax dollars for the city.

This is just wrong.

Here is the Article.


What can we do to stop this insanity?

Sugar Mill in Sugar Land

The old sugar mill in Sugar Land, TX closed at the beginning of the year after something like 150 years of continuous operation. The plant is to be developed into a river walk (San Antonia, TX) like complex with Shopping and Restaurants and Office space. I wanted to get some pictures before the work starts so that I could document the old facility. I'll take some better ones on a nice bright day sometime soon. I'll also post updates as the project progresses.
Enjoy,


Old Sugarmill Char House 


Old Sugar Mill 

Cool Beretta

I have the opportunity to pick up this limited run Beretta 92 for under 1000 bucks.



This is a 92EL “Texas Special” 1 of 50 for the Opening of the Dallas Gallery, 9mm Parabellum 92EL.

Cool gun, but i'm not sure i want to spend that much money on something that I would not want to shoot due to the collectors value.

Birds 

Every year in the spring we get a dove nest in the little window above our back door. This year we've had two families so far. This is family two with Mom and her two young ones.

For the most part, we ignore them and they ignore us. We are constantly in and out and try to avoid slamming the door, but thats about it.

Enjoy

Damn Cholesterol

Going on two years ago, I quit smoking and started gaining weight. About the same time, I developed a foot problem, plantar fasciitis, and stopped all exercise. Well now I’m a whopping 220 (up from around 180-190) and my cholesterol is skyrocketing. Last summer it was at 240 and I opted to wait and see. Well now it’s at 260 and my doctor says it’s time to get on Lipitor. So I take my first dose tonight. Hopefully I will not have any side affects since those are very few with this drug. I’ll post an occasional update on any effects and update my cholesterol in about 6-7 weeks.

I told my doctor that I didn’t have any health problems when I smoked and was considering starting the habit again for some relief. He wasn’t amused.

Wish me luck on lowering my Cholesterol.