The Battalion
ENTERTAINMENT 11
Monday, March 6,1989
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Park, museum preserve legaci es of Texas heritage
By Cray Pixley
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
The diminutive town of Wash
ington, Texas is an unassuming
outcrop of farms, homes, gas sta
tions and shops seven miles out
side of Navasota.
But Washington is not just an
other sleepy settlement existing
on the fringes of a slightly larger
town. It is the site of a gold mine
of Texas history.
Washington is the home of the
Washington-on-the-Brazos State
Historical Park heralded as the
birthplace of the Republic of
Texas.
On March 2, 1836, in an unfi
nished building a short distance
from the Brazos River, Texas del
egates declared their indepen
dence from Mexico and formed
the republic.
The historic park boasts three
buildings celebrating Texas inde
pendence and the beginnings of
what were to become the Lone
Star state.
In the true spirit of Texas
pride, the structure housing trea
sures from the years of the re
public and state is a stone edifice
in the shape of a star.
The Star of the Republic Mu
seum, administered by Blinn Col
lege, is a two-story building in
which artifacts and exhibitions
chart the lifestyle and history of
19th century Texans.
The ground floor of the mu
seum is dedicated to exploring
the lives of the men and women
who helped build the republic.
The work of Sam Houston,
Anson Jones and many other
founding fathers are chronicled
through photographs, artwork
and exhibits of their personal
property.
Mementos such as money,
flags, weapons and medical in
struments give visitors an idea of
life in early T exas.
Mexican sabers, pistols and In
dian bows and arrows give testa
ment to the early settler’s strug
gles against Mexican invasions
and Indian raids.
Indians posed a constant threat
to settlers. The words of Presi
dent of the Republic Mirabeau B.
Lamar give insight into the new
Texans’ feelings toward their
neighbors.
“The white man and the red
man cannot dwell in harmony
together,” Lamar said. “Nature
forbids it.”
But the Cherokee and Coman
che tribes were not always out
subjects ol exhibits. The second
level offers a glimpse into the
lives of everyday 19th-century
Texans.
Along with the cotton, there is
a vintage cotton gin and a re
minder that more than 40,000
slaves lived and worked at farms
during the reign of the republic.
A photograph of the slave
Anne Freeman Groves ironically
lists her residence as Indepen
dence, Texas.
A mock interior of a dry-goods
store displays the wares available
to customers from the mercantile
trade.
Iron pots, brass candlesticks
M
lementos such as money, flags, weapons and
medical instruments give visitors an idea of life in
early Texas. Mexican sabers, pistols and Indian
bows and arrows give testament to the early settler’s
struggles against Mexican invasions and Indian
raids. Indians posed a constant threat to settlers.
causing trouble.
One glass-covered display
shows sticks Indians used in a ball
game.
Virtually every facet of Texas’
past is covered in the museum’s
exhibits.
The core of the star houses the
Jesse H. Jones Theatre, which
presents films focusing on Texas
history.
This month, the theater pre
mieres “The Republic of Texas”,
an orientation film that provides
visitors with a background for
their tour of the museum.
A winding ramp takes museum
visitors to the opening of the sec
ond floor where a gigantic cotton
bale serves as a reminder to how
crucial the cotton industry was in
the state’s development.
Mercantile, economic and agri
cultural aspects of Texas are the
John Grimm, 6, of Magnolia, studies
the museum at Washington-on-the-
Photo by Ronnie Montgomery
a model boat on display in
Brazos.
and bags of dried foods stand on
the shelves. A jar of rock candy
seems to be waiting for a hungry
child.
Most stores of the century car
ried huge barrels full of molasses,
vinegar, wine and cider. The
shops also had household and
farm goods for consumers.
It may surprise some visitors
that steamboats once navigated
Texas rivers. A model of one,
Yellow Stone, recalls the days of
river travel. The decks of the ves
sel provided space to transport
cotton from one landing to an
other.
The second level opens to an
observation deck from which the
surrounding countryside is visi
ble.
Farms, pine trees, horses and
cows dot the land in addition to
the low-level Brazos River. It is
still too early in the year for the
wildflowers to color the park
grounds.
The riches of the museum are
visited by few tourists during the
fall and winter months.
During the colder months, the
museum receives about 100 visi
tors each day, Barbara Sulek, a
weekend employee of the mu
seum, says.
She says visitors seem to be
governed by the weather and the
presence of bluebonnets in the
fields.
“We don’t have large crowds
when the weather is cold,” she
says.
“It’s when the bluebonnets
bloom that the people pour in.
On most spring weekends, we get
1,000 to 1,500 visitors.”
Visitors Gerry and Ruth Chris
tianson from Taylors Falls, Min
nesota were not put off by the
cool breezy weather or the lack of
a plush carpet of wildflowers.
The historic home of Anson Jones, the last
President of the Republic of Texas, stands in
Photo by Ronnie Montgomery
the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Histori
cal Park and is open to the public for tours.
“We are retired and visit mu
seums all over the country, but
Texas has the best,” he says.
“It’s surprising the number of
artifacts that this museum has on
display. Most I’ve been to didn’t
have this many.”
Ruth Christianson agrees with
her husband.
“I think it is tremendous about
the number of artifacts that were
salvaged for the museum,” she
says. “We really are enjoying this
visit.”
Like most museums, the Star
of the Republic has a gift shop
full of souvenirs.
The mementos include books
about Texas history, museum T-
shirts and the obligatory bumper
stickers and buttons. More tradi
tional items include cornhusk
dolls, iron piggy banks, steamboat
models and wooden dolls.
Once the rounds have been
made in the museum, visitors can
take a stroll through the home of
the fourth and last president of
the republic, Anson Jones.
A few minutes walk from the
museum, Jones’ white cedar
home is surrounded by a picket
fence and overlooks the Brazos.
Barrington is the restored
plantation home that Jones built
in 1845.
Although the house commands
a prime location in the park, it
originally stood about four miles
outside of Washington. In 1936,
it was moved to the park as part
L u
of the republic exhibit.
Tours of the home are given by
uides from the Texas Parks and
ildlife Department.
The spartan furnishings inside
were the property of Jones or
contemporary to his time.
The master bedroom features
a huge feather bed with a colorful
quilt and a dresser used by Jones
and his wife. The guest bedroom
sports an early model of the trun
dle bed.
The dining room is set for sup
per and guide Edna Jackson
points out the petite size of the
dinnerware.
“The people were much
smaller in the 19th century,” she
says. “The plates are tiny in com
parison to present-day sizes.”
The upstairs room is off limits
to visitors because of the diffi
culty in descending the narrow
staircase.
The home is curiously missing
a kitchen, which is detached from
the home. In Jones’ day, cooking
inside the home would have been
a fire hazard.
Even the small kitchen proved
too hazardous. Jones’ cookhouse
burned down four times.
The final monument to Texas
Independence is a replica of In
dependence Hall.
In 1836, the 59 delegates met
in a similiar hall to declare Texas
free and separate from Mexico.
The unfinished frame hall is
modest in design and decoration,
but accurately reflects the origi
nal structure.
The empty chairs and long
wooden tables call to mind the
men who worked for Texas’ free
dom over 150 years ago.
Along the pathway to the hall,
a dirt trail branches off toward
the river. A sign along the way
proclaims the path leads to a river
overlook.
The trip is hardly worth the
walk. The river is visible but only
from a tangle of weeds and other
growth. The view is restricted by
the opposite muddy bank and
trees.
It’s best to skip the river over
look and stay with the historical
buildings. A better view of the
river can be seen on the highway
leading to the park.
The park is well worth seeing.
To visit Washington-on-the-
Brazos State Historical Park, take
Highway 6 South to Navasota. In
Navasota, take Highway 105 West
for seven miles before turning
right onto FM 1155 to the park.
The museum hours are March
through August, 10 a.m. to 5
p.m. daily. September through
February, Wednesday-Sunday at
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is
free.
The Anson Jones home is open
daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission
is $1 for adults and 50tf for chil
dren.
Telephone becomes newest source of advice, diversion, romance
ie
d
he
NEW YORK (AP) — Beware the
telephone.
TV ads may tease and promise ad
venture at the fingertips. But it’s call
now, pay later, when the monthly
bill shows where late night loneliness
and the pursuit of romance dug into
the wallet.
That once-friendly instrument,
masquerading in the colors of the
rainbow and shapes that range from
computer clever to Space Age
gothic, is at your service with services
you never dreamed you’d want.
Everything is available: from pay-
as-you-talk to Santa to pay-as-you-
dream about sex.
A firm in Seattle brought down
the wrath of parents with a half-
hour Christmas show featuring
Santa Claus.
Children were told to hold their
telephones toward the screen,
whereupon tone-activated signals di
aled up that jolly old elf so the kids
could chat with him, while the com
puter logged and charged for the
calls.
Things have changed in the tele
phone world, not so much because
the changes are needed, but because
they are possible. And profitable.
Today’s telephone junkie can
have intimate chats with all kinds of
strangers.
Now a whole new series of 1-900
numbers are opening up.
On some you are a quiz show
guest, answering with your push
button phone to maybe win a prize.
But you pay for the call, perhaps $2
for openers and more if you stay on
the line.
A simple call on one adult sex line
in New York City can run $20 or
more, whether you talk or not.
The telephone has spawned a new
business that some say is eclipsing
$400 million a year and growing.
An evening ot letting your ringers
do the walking can ring up a $200
phone bill in a couple of hours.
The same comforting device that
gave you grandma’s warm and com
forting voice now gives you every
thing from strange sex to sexy
strangers, from gays in search of
companionship to high school kids
on a high.
It offers up the stock market, the
latest interest rates, advice on mort
gages. Its recorded voices tell you
what meetings there are in your
community, where to shop for an
auto loan, when to get up, how' to
pray, w'hat your biorhythms are,
when your stars are favorable, w'hen
they are not, how' to get a date what
ever your sexual or racial choice,
who is going to win the Super Bowl
and what the point spread is, where
to get f ree money for college.
Dial and get the latest jokes, the
top horse racing picks, lottery re
sults, a daily diet, skiing bargains,
sports scores, government job open
ings, insults, wine choices, movie re
views, soap opera review’s, music
trivia, sports trivia, trivial trivia.
That’s not all.
On the gab lines you can chat with
strangers, search for a date, leave
your number for promised human
adventure, dispel in seven push-but
ton digits that most universal of all
human conditions, loneliness.
And if one is too shy, dial the
adult lines (in New York there are
more than 200 of them) and become
an aural voyeur to kinky sex, erotic
fantasy.
It is 5:30 a.m. in New York City
and CBS has sandwiched in between
its late-night rerun and morning
business shows a commercial or two
show ing a black-dressed villain and a
pretty blonde a la Perils of Pauline
urging viewers to call a certain 970
number and rescue this damsel from
certain boredom.
When the number is reached (af
ter several tries) a woman’s voice says
the call will cost $5 unless you hang
up now.
Then you are assigned your per
sonal code number and given an
other telephone number to call. Af
ter several tries again, you enter
your code, then push another num
ber as instructed and finally reach a
young, breathless voice named
Linda. She is apparently ready to
field your favorite fantasy, although
she volunteers nothing.
You find that she is a 22-year-old
college graduate (political science)
from a New York state university, is
thinking about joining the Peace
Corps, and is saving money to go to
Europe to visit a friend.
You hesitate to ask, “What’s a nice
girl like you doing in this racket,”
and inquire instead, “Are you well-
paid for this?”
She answers no. Then someone
steps in and terminates the call. Ei
ther time was up or the questions
were going too far.
Three weeks later the television
invitation to call carries a sotto voce
addendum: “Ten dollars a call.”
This particular operation is of
fered by one of a group of compa
nies, known usually as Omni Phone
Inc. of Seattle, although in Texas the
name is HDL Inc.
The marketing and promotion is
handled by a firm called the Mega
quest Group, based in Seattle. The
companies employ about 500 people
and operate in about 30 cities do
mestically, plus all of Canada and in
London, Rotterdam, Paris and Aus
tralia.
One of the satellite companies,
Phonequest, was the one that engi
neered the Santa calling show. It w'as
syndicated to 30 domestic and four
foreign markets.
When the Seattle station began
getting irate calls, it quickly ran a
warning to children with the printed
words telling them to ask Mom and
Dad first.
Why did Phonequest, which has
used the program for four years,
rely on the electronic dialing tech
nique? A spokesman said it was to
prevent children from dialing the
wrong number.
When one of the firm’s 970 num
bers in New York City was dialed
and reached after several abortive
tries, a pretentiously sexy female
voice answered and offered to be
companionable.
When the phone bill came in, it
registered four calls and two additio
nal minutes. The charge was $79.80,
even though three of the calls never
produced an answer.
When the number was called
back, post billing, this was the con
versation:
Hi, welcome to party line.
How much does this call cost?
You didn’t hear the recording?
There was no recording.
Nineteen ninety-five.
Goodbye.
That number also was advertised
on television, with an attractive
young woman adding under her
breathless message, “$19.95 a call.”
It so happened that particular
number was another Omni Phone
enterprise. Betsy Superfon, known
erroneously in the trade as “Betsy
Superphone,” is chief executive offi
cer of the Seattle-based firm.
She says the company offers ev
erything from soap opera updates to
joke lines, from dial-an-insult to
group access lines.
She outlined plans to go into
other areas with information storage
and retrieval via voice, a kind of tele
phone postal service, as well as inter
connections between computers,
and varying menues available on a
single line to get specific data, for in
stance in sports, that the caller de
sires.
There is also a proposal to acquire
her firm from herself and partners
Joel and Rebecca Eisenberg. They
claim a 1987 net income of not less
Fhe same comforting device that gave you
grandma’s warm and comforting voice now gives
you everything from strange sex to sexy strangers,
from gays in search of companionship to high
school kids on a high. It offers up the stock market,
the latest interest rates, advice on mortgages..
That’s not all. On the gab lines you can chat with
strangers, search for a date, leave your number for
promised human adventure, dispel in seven push
button digits that most universal of all human
conditions, loneliness.
than $4 million.
The would-be acquirer is a Texas
firm called WurlTech Industries of
Houston, which is listed on the New
York Stock Exchange as a billiard ta
ble manufacturer. It was recently
quoted at about a dollar a share.
Of the unanswered but charged-
for calls, Superfon said she would
refund any justifiable costs on rec
eipt of a complaining letter.
She said there is a quality control
program to prevent such errors.
Would she continue the current
gab line and adult services in light of
her future plans?
“Absolutely. People are lonely,
have been lonely and always will be
lonely.”
Besides, for many people the
phone lines provide a real service for
companionship, even though many
of the people who link up by voice
rarely see each other.
“Telephones are really safe,” she
says.
There is already the beginning of
a second generation of telephone
line dating.
From New York City comes word
of a “Fax,” or facsimile-transmitter
club, which for a few hundred dol
lars will let you fax your message to
someone else’s fax, and never hear
their voice if you don’t want to.
Chris Elwell, editor of the Infor
mation Industry Bulletin, one of the
few authoritative sources in the dial-
it industry, says using the telephone
for information is nothing new.
New York telephone operators
have been giving the time of day
since the late 1920s, with the
weather and traffic information fol
lowing.
The old operator and the party
line were avenues for news and gos
sip.