South Fredonia

While much of the neighborhood just south of downtown has changed drastically, we were pleased to find this unassuming house still standing in its original location. The historical photo was taken from the middle of South Fredonia St. facing north. We experienced a slight alignment problem with the porch between the original and our recreated photo. It seems that the house is sitting at a higher elevation than it was in 1909. We theorized that this could be due to the fact that all the other houses closer to Banita creek were condemned in the 1970's due to flooding.  This house may have been spared because they were able to raise it up several feet.

Downtown Festival

Our goal for this location was to recreate a photo of a downtown fair taken in 1910. The original photo was shot from the second floor of the building on the northeast corner of Main and Church. The Blueberry Festival provided the perfect opportunity to capture a contemporary version of the original scene.


We encountered one minor, yet terrifying, obstacle in the process. That's not a staircase, it's termites holding hands. Neither words nor photographs can adequately express how jacked up these stairs were. I only walked up them because I was afraid the girls would make fun of me. On the bright side, skydiving, bungee jumping, and snake charming now seem trivial.

Hitchcock's Nightmare

We arrived at the two-story building on the southwest corner of Main Street and Pecan Street to recreate a photo of the north side of the downtown square and Main Street.  We had been notified that there were "some" dead birds in the building.  What we saw when the doors were opened was enough to make me consider faking an illness and going home for the day.

I wondered, "How could a creature be so stupid to enter a building and not be able to find a way out?"  Then I remembered the first time I went to an IKEA...

Behind Main Street

Some images just work.  We used details on the roof line to make a perfect match with this photograph.  It is interesting to see what went on behind the scenes.  This is an alleyway north of Main Street.  Most of the historical photos of downtown we have seen show a very tidy appearance, this view of the back of the buildings shows a different side of historic Nac.

Old Stone Fort

The rain today finally let up about the time that we were scheduled to head downtown. A reporter from the Daily Sentinel met us there, and so did Hardy Merideth, the official photographer for the University. The heat was not nearly as bad as it had been, so they days work was much more enjoyable.

Our goal this time out was to go to where the Old Stone Fort used to stand to make a new photograph. That's right, I said used to be. The fort now stands on the campus of SFA, supposedly disallowing any unaware freshman who sets foot inside from graduating. The corner the fort is at now is actually the third location that it has been moved to, and hopefully the last. It was first built in the heart of downtown, but in 1903 it was disassembled and reconstructed somewhere near the Old Nacogdoches University Building, which is now on the campus of Thomas J. Rusk Middle School. After a short time there, it was moved to SFA.

Our vantage point was limited by the fact that at some point in the past someone decided to just go ahead and build a Regions Bank right in our way. The fort itself used to stick out much farther into Main Street than does the current Commercial Bank. The original photographer might have taken this shot straight on, but we had to employ some fancy-schmancy view camera tricks to get everything lined up. We should be developing the film any day now.

Banita Hotel

This location was easy to find.  In fact we had walked past it several times when we were looking for the other bridge over Banita Creek.

A Bridge Too Far

This afternoon we headed out to the place where Main Street crosses over Banita Creek to recreate this photograph of the Watson Hotel. All we had was a rough location to begin with, and since the hotel no longer exists, we used other features found in the photo to help us locate the spot where the image was taken. The two easiest features to identify were the Nacogdoches Grocery building and the bridge that crosses Banita Creek.

When we first arrived at the location we immediately assumed that the photo was taken of Main Street because the description on the back of the photo read "West Main."  We tried for a while to figure out exactly where we were supposed to be, but nothing seemed to be falling into place. Time to regroup.

We eventually came to a group consensus that the photo was actually taken not of Main Street, but from Main Street. Once that was finally cleared up we still had a problem... We were missing a bridge! 

Luckily, we have a research team who spends hours a day pouring over maps and photographs without rest. There is a large collection on Sanborn maps from as far back as 1885 at our disposal, and after some intensive investigation, we learned two things. 

The map on the left is from 1906; the one on the right is from 1912.

Firstly, we discovered that our mysterious bridge was actually a small footbridge built across Banita Creek sometime after 1906, most likely for grocery shoppers and hotel guests to get downtown without having to get all soggy.

Second, we were actually able to date the photograph to between 1906 and 1912. The hotel still existed in 1906, but no longer stands in the 1912 map. The bridge wasn't yet built in 1906, but was finished sometime before 1912, as was the awning on the grocery. Because the photo was taken when all three structures stood at the same time, we know when it was shot. Well, at least the 6 year span anyway. Interestingly enough, the 4 in. pipe from the 1912 map is still there to this day, albeit in several pieces.