Page \ 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, April 23, 1985
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Complaints
bared by
sunbathers
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Construction work at
Hippie Hollow, a long-time nude
beach area on Lake Travis, is spoil
ing the natural beauty of the area,
sunbathers complain.
“We come out here to get away
from the asphalt,” said a sunbather
who asked to be identified only as
Marvin. “But now you come here
and see the same thing,” he said
while standing in the middle of a
new, paved parking lot at Hippie
Hollow.
A grant from the Texas Parks and
Wildlife Commission and nearly
$400,000 in Travis County bond
funds are being used to pave a park
ing lot, put in two restroom build
ings with decks, build a ticket booth
and grade a 4,700-foot lakeside trail.
The county leases Hippie Hollow
from the Lower Colorado River Au
thority.
It was the trail that sunbathers
grumbled about most over the week
end.
“It’s a highway,” a man identified
as Gary told the Austin American-
Statesman. “It just looks like overkill.
The trail is within 10 feet of the wa
terline at some parts. You used to
could look up and see j^reen trees.
Now you see more rocks.
The work isn’t finished, said Tra
vis County Commissioner Bob
Honts, who is coordinating the pro-
ject.
“It’s going to be put back in a very
natural form,” Honts said.
The changes are designed to
make Hippie Hollow cleaner and
safer, he said. In recent years, more
beer cans and bottles than sunbath
ers have lined the rocky banks of the
hollow, officials said.
Trash has been thrown down the
hill and, when it rains, the trash
washes into the lake, said Sueann
Brady, Honts’ assistant.
Before the new trail was cut
through Hippie Hollow, the trash
had to be packed out of the park, she
said. One weekend last summer,
workers hauled two tons of trash out
of the beach area, she added.
“You literally couldn’t keep it
from being a trash receptacle,”
Honts said. “We're still digging bot
tles out of there that have probably
been there 10 years.”
The trail will also make Hippie
Hollow more accessible to emer
gency vehicles when a swimmer is in
jured, Brady said.
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“Could you explain what ‘dead week' is to me? Is it a week
when we don’t have to come to class?”
Man chooses land
instead of money
Associated Press
Willie sings new tune
Associated Press
AUSTIN — There were no hoots,
hats or longneck beers. Not even a
chorus of “Whiskey River.” The au
dience didn’t mind when Willie Nel
son appeared live, on stage, in
church.
Mann said. “All that’s ever adver
tised is the outlaw image and the sea
mier side of his life. I love Willie.
He’s a kind and gende man and a
deeply spiritual man. Most people
don\ know that.”
Nelson, the country singer with an
outlaw reputation, doesn’t play
churches very often, but Rev. Gerald
Mann, pastor of Austin’s Riverbend
Baptist Church, got him into one.
Mann turned down an offer of
$1,000 for two tickets to the Sunday
night service, and he didn’t even
pass the collection plate.
Nelson devilishly threatened to
sing “Whiskey River.”
Mann threatened to preach his
topic of humility but the two men
reached a compromise.
“The main purpose is for the
world to see the other side of Willie,”
Mann said before the service, ex
plaining how he lured Nelson into a
free appearance to help mark the
dedication of the new church build
ing.
After Nelson sang “In God’s
Eyes,” Mann recited an earlier duet
between the two performers.
Mann: “Have you been to church
since?”
Nelson: “No.”
Mann: “Do you send money?”
Nelson: “I ve been sendi
somewhere.”
OLD OCEAN — John Holland
Bannister turned down an offer to
buy his old slave cemetery, planta
tion house and some woods and
ranch land that others would have
found hard to refuse.
But to the man who spent 30 years
in the oil business and gave up a big
house in Houston to move to the
country, choosing land over money
came easily.
“Now what would I do with all
that money,” Bannister says. “I don’t
want a big house. I had all that, and I
gave it up. I want the land. You’re
never poor if you have land.”
Bannister, 62, had another good
reason to look past the seven-figure
offer from Phillips Petroleum — a
reason deeply rooted in history.
He is the great-great-granason of
one of the first Anglo settlers in
Texas, John Sweeny, who was given
the land in 1833 by Stephen F. Aus
tin.
Austin gave Sweeny 50,000 acres,
which Sweeny split among his nine
sons. John Sweeny Jr. received the
bulk of the land, 15,000 acres, which
he turned into a plantation.
Sweeny’s descendants over the
years have sold all but the acreage
now owned by Bannister, his brother
and a cousin. Bannister moved back
to the old homestead in 1981, and
this is where he says he’s doing to die
—just like John Sweeny Jr.
Part of the once-fertile land that
for so many years produced cotton
and sugar cane now accommodates a
Phillips petrochemical complex.
In the mid-1970s Phillips ap
proached Bannister about selling the
remaining 1,000 acres for future
plant expansion.
“The idea of selling the land just
turns me off,” Bannister says. rf My
ancestors settled here when all this
was forest. They had to clear the
trees out before they could farm the
land. They didn’t come to speculate
but to start a new life.”
Another man shares Bannister’s
attachment to this land. This is
where the parents of Thomas Jeffer
son Ellis Jr. were laid to rest, and this
is where Ellis, better known to
friends as T.J., says he wants to be
buried in the old slave cemetery.
The cemetery lies across the road
from a massive maze of pipes, water
coolers and storage tanks — a meet
ing of history and progress in this
western Brazoria County c
marked graves on this green patch
of land that has changed little since
the first years ago. The descendants
of the plantation slaves still bury
their dead here.
“There is a lot of history here,”
says Ellis, 78, who has been caretaker
here for seven years. “I’m going to
keep it going as long as I can.”
Ellis is a retired Farmer and Phil
lips employee. He grew up on a
nearby farm‘and recalls play ing ball
as a child on the plantation.
He remembers the row of long,
narrow slave houses that once stood
where cattle now roam, the school-
house and the church, and the pecan
trees that once lined the dirt road to
the plantation house.
Ellis, who has spent most of his
life and reared five children here,
says the physical reminders of an era
when people were bought and sold
do not botner him.
“That’s history, and this is the pre
sent,” he says. “We’re all friends
About 50 descendants of the plan
tation slaves still live in the area. The
only requirement for burial in the
cemetery, Ellis says, is to be one of
those descendants.
No one knows exactly where the
slave graves are located because
none are marked, Ellis says. They
were either never marked or the
markers have been lost or deterio
rated over the years.
The plantation that surrounds the
cemetery was converted to a ranch in
the 1940s, and most of it is now
leased as pasture. Bannister reserves
a small section for his own 30 head
of cattle. This way, he says, he can
have a piece of steak anytime he
wants without going to the super
market.
iginal pi
mains in good shape. Bannister
leases the building to a family who
maintains and repairs it in lieu of
rent. The house has been expanded
over the years, but has retained its
original grandeur and most of the
nails, wood and bricks slaves used to
build it in 1837.
sending it mty
>ounty commu-
About 100 slaves are buried in un-
The two-story house is far too big
for Bannister and his wife, Nancy.
The couple live in a smaller house
on Texas 35.
Geologist
to mine lost
ore lode
Associated Press
HOUSTON — A Houston ge
ologist hopes to pick ud where
prospectors in the late 1800s
off when he goes hunting for sil
ver in the Colorado mountains.
A.H. Wadsworth .Jr. oil
W’adsworth Oil Co. says he willbt
digging into an untouched nor-
lion of an ore lode believed to
have been separated by a geok
cal fault millions of years ago.
The operation will be an exten
sion of the old Moose Mine,
miles south of Breckenridge and |
two miles from Hoosier Pass (
the Continental Divide.
|ol. 80 No. 135
The mine was one of Colon-1
do’s largest producers of silver!
until it was mined up to the fault
and closed in 1893.
Early-day miners believed ati|
extension of the Moose Mineott
deposit existed somewhere be
yond the fault. But, Wadswortk:
said, they could not find it wittij
their simple equipment and 19
century knowledge of geology.
ong
iplits
rebel
Associan
“We got in only a month of
core drilling last year before win
ter set in and closed the roads,
Wadsworth said.
WASHING IX)h
latic-controlled H
|ght rejected 2-
:agan’s proposal
red miliiarv aid
:nts seeking to ov
ivernment of Nic
olution was ap
-the Republican-led
wrs earlier.
■Combined, the i
gominuing debate
The mine is in an area where tallow Reagan to p
access roads are under 50 feet or Is-i tance to the re
more of snow in winter.
During last year’s exploration,
tests showed that the ore deposit
extended for about 1,700 feet
f rom the fault, he said.
[In both houses.
Jditional suppor
pledge to reop
is between the
She Sandinista gov
Wadsworth said the
strike’s 1,700 feet length should
produce silver which, in there-
fined state, is now selling on the
market for about $6.45 an ounce,
Aside from Moose Mine,
Wadsworth's lease acquisition in
cludes 4,000 acres of mineral
in Democratic
nev Bu s policy lowai
Reagan also pr
e money for mi
)d of the cui re
tpt. 30.
(The House vot
(ree on aid to th
- §vo remaining alt
pleteljKcied to be mud-
equipped mine with gold, silver | etaken Wednes ,
and lead ore that can operate■Q rie c hoice sp<
year around and a 250-ton per L. mou ats wou | d
day ore mill at the town of Alma jjij m jHj on b e
Jniied Nations oi
Wadsworth said he bought the k-d Cross for Ni
leases for $3 million and has Ld to enforce an
spent about $500,000 so far. the countries ir
SAWmCLS
J The second ah<
in House Republ
lithel of Illinois
Je president. w<
|pn to the Conti
jhbri-lethal aid to
nited States Ag
iijbiial Developme
Tin the Senate, z
ID Democrats voi
aid proposal; 37 L
lepublicans vot
i|hn East, R-N.C
cause he is in the 1
J Specifically, th
an appropriatioi
■ratmlitary ope
But Reagan p
delivered to Sem
Robert Dole only
the vote that he v
for non-leth
1st of the fiscal
10.
Low
It's easy to lose your way when hunting for a new apartment.
Now, Treehouse Village is helping to make your choice a little
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with a wild assortment of extras. Just
a few blocks from campus, Treehouse
Village features the popular two-
TREEHOUSE
VILLAGE-
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tubs, jogging trail and tennis, basketball and volleyball courts.
Some handicap units available, too.
So come in from the jungle and set
tle into a comfortable new apartment
at Treehouse Village. Your haven in
the apartment jungle.
Editor’s Note:
le in a two-part
duscry and he
file’s economic <
By KEVIN
TRENT
Staff
Pete Wilson’s
dget have on<
APARTMENTS
LEASE NOW FOR FALL 1985.
Texc
by'£
By CARN
h
Treehouse Village Apartments. From $295. For information, visit the Treehouse Village Apartments Leasing Office at
800 Marion Pugh Blvd.
College Station, Texas 77840
409/764-8892
Professionally managed by Callaway Properties.
Tornado se
Monday ni
were sighted
Monday, the
Service issued
77 counties in
In Olney, a
“exploded” S
j hit by a tornac
-year-old a
jvvife and the
Iwere found n-
The month
June are activ
does and huri
Hurricanes
reach the Br
area, but off-;