EDITOR’S CORNER
Looking through the July 10, 1919, Rockdale Reporter, to write part of the column you can find at the bottom of this page, I saw it again.
That little community just northwest of Rockdale. One hundred years ago they called it “Buschdale.”
Yep, with a “c.”
I don’t know when the extra letter got dropped but I’ll guarantee you it was well before the past 60 years. When did it happen?
Obviously, Buschdale and Bushdale are pronounced the same. It’s just as obvious that the community was named for a settler called Busch, like the brewers, not Bush, like the presidents.
But why did that “c” go away?
I won’t say I worry about things like that, but they intrigue me.
Names intrigue me. Going to the Austin airport the other day I passed “Hog Eye Road.”
I read somewhere that Elgin used to be called “Hog Eye” and, indeed, this road takes off in the general direction of Elgin. And Elgin has a Hog Eye Festival.
I looked up Hog Eye, Texas, and found it. But it’s not Elgin. Apparently there are still several Hog Eyes scattered around the nation.
We all know that towns and cities change their names over time.
Austin, for instance, started out as “Waterloo,” named after a rather famous battle.
It’s not a name change, but San Antonio is only part of the name of our state’s most historical city, and for much of its history it was called by the other part.
San Antonio de Bexar is its name. During the time of that famous battle, for which it’s forever tagged the Alamo City, most called it “Bexar.”
That’s what Ben Milam said in his famous line asking for Texian soldiers to go with him to retake the city during the Texas Revolution: “Who will go with old Ben Milam into Bexar?”
Of course now there are two pronunciations you are liable to hear of “Bexar,” one like the aspirin, which is correct, and one like the big furry mammal.
You’ve heard it at all levels of communication, “Bear County.”
Speaking of our great state’s largest cities, Houston was always called Houston but Dallas has one of the most intriguing name-founding stories.
Dallas was named for—drum roll—someone nobody is likely to ever know.
If you look up Dallas County you will learn it was named for George M. Dallas, the vice president under President James Knox Polk.
That’s true. Texas came into the union during Polk Administration and there were counties named both for Polk and Dallas.
Except there had been a city named Dallas for three years before there was a Dallas County, well before Dallas became vice-president.
The city was founded by the enigmatic, and tragic, John Neely Bryan. Bryan was the city’s general store owner, postmaster, ferry operator and his home was the courthouse.
He named the city “Dallas” but it wasn’t for the man who would become vice-president. Historians haven’t found any evidence Bryan even knew that Dallas in those days.
Bryan was, however, acquainted with four different prominent men named “Dallas.” But it’s not known for which, if any, of those four the city was named.
And Bryan was not in any shape to share that knowledge at the end of his life. He suffered from mental illness and died in the unfortunately named State Lunatic Asylum in Austin.
Another strange fact. On Nov. 23, 1963, when Abraham Zapruder took that famous film of President Kennedy’s assassination, he was standing on a memorial concrete pillar named for Bryan in Dealy Plaza.
Just in case you are thinking, like I was, that the city of Bryan may have also been named for the founder of Dallas, it wasn’t.
That Brazos County city was named for William J. Bryan, a nephew of Stephen F. Waterloo.
Uh, Austin.
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