'State’s Historic Roadside Parks, Rest Areas Still Serve a Purpose' by Jeanne Williams.Temple Daily Telegram

State’s Historic Roadside Parks, Rest Areas Still Serve a Purpose

by Jeanne Williams - Temple Daily Telegram

May 9, 2011

“As the wanderer in the desert welcomes the oasis, so the Texas motorist hails with joy

these little off-the-road nooks, which offer rest and relaxation after a ride in the

broiling sun.”

— Texas Parade magazine, September 1936 edition on the topic of roadside parks.

MILANO — Those shady, wayside picnic areas with rock and masonry grills, tables,

benches and handy trash burners have served Texas’ travel-weary motorists since the

1930s. When they were not ministering to the sweat-soaked sojourner, these small rest

areas, such as Seven Cedars Park east of Milano, were the venue of Sunday school

picnics and public school end-of-year parties.

Roadside parks have been a part of Texas’ travel heritage since the 1935s, when Lyndon

Baines Johnson, later the 36th U.S. president, took the reins as director of the newly

established National Youth Administration — a federal program designed to put youths

ages 16–25 to work during the Great Depression.

In 1936, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas participated in developing an elegant,

landscaped roadside park at the site of Nashville-on-the-Brazos in east Milam County,

where Sterling C. Robertson established one of the state’s first settlements. Red

sandstones were salvaged from the 19th century cabin sites and used to construct picnic

tables ad benches, cooking grills and for décor. The park was closed when the highway

was relocated, and now sits quietly in the middle of nowhere as a ghost park, where

iris plants and crepe myrtle trees still bloom and a few crumbling furnishings attest

to its original role.

By 1938, some 674 roadside parks existed in Texas. All the picnic areas were donated to

the state by landowners or purchased by counties and civic clubs and deeded to the

Texas Highway Department, predecessor to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Another wave of roadside park construction was wheeled in during the late 1940s, with

more renovation and construction projects approved in the 1960s under the auspices of

Lady Bird Johnson’s inspiring Highway Beautification Act of 1965. These larger, safety

rest facilities opened along major highways beckoning motorists with water fountains

and restrooms — the forerunner to today’s megabuck, state-of-the-art traveler break

stations.

Near Milano, Seven Cedars Park is among those built after the Depression, but boasts

many of the same style fixtures. Seven Cedars Park was built on one acre deeded March

24, 1955, to the state by multi-millionaire H.H. Coffield of Rockdale.

A roadside park in Marion County, about a half mile east of Jefferson, holds special

memories for Dr. Lucile Estell, Milam County Historical Commission publicity chairman

and a retired educator. In the 1930s and ‘40s, her family journeying between Louisiana

and Rockdale stopped at the roadside park to feast on one of her mother’s special

picnic lunches, or on the return trip to enjoy a watermelon. The park was made of

native stone below highway level, so motorists had to drive down into the rest stop.

“At that time, you didn’t stop at a restaurant and eat, you took your lunch and stopped

at a roadside park,” Dr. Estell said. She remembered the old parks as “clean and well

kept.” Some families headed for the park for cookouts, grilling their hamburgers and

hot dogs on the pits.

These basic rest stops are facing some tough competition with today’s spacious, flashy,

WI-FI-wired, air conditioned, rest-roomed, museum-like tourist stops with hot and cold

running vending machines that dispense treats ranging from hot coffee to ice cream.

But the antique roadside rest areas aren’t going anywhere, said Andrew W. Keith, Texas

Department of Transportation’s safety rest area supervisor. A few have been torn down

after being infested with gangs and drug activity, but there are still 600 of these

parks standing quietly in the shade along a state highway at various sites throughout

Texas.For those who long for a return trip into the slow lane, when air conditioning

meant rolling down a vehicle window and fast food came from home wrapped in waxed

paper, TxDOT lists 41 Depression-era parks still on the job including a stop at the

Williamson-Burnet county line on Texas 29.

Seven different styles of roadside picnic parks were built statewide, boasting either

rock or brick masonry furnishings. They varied from one little table beside the road to

four tables, Keith said.

In the 1990s, the public began to complain the parks were old and run down; people’s

vehicles were fancier, more comfortable and offered air conditioning; and some of the

motoring public thought the rest areas were too plain, Keith said.

Today, some parks are only a memory or an image in a black and-white photograph, closed

and abandoned when the highway moved. Others were shut down when they deteriorated and

became a maintenance problem; some became victims of vandalism, vagrancy, nuisance

activity and crime. Many are still in place, but have lost the majority of their NYA-

constructed fixtures.

“Back in those days, there were no fast food places, and people would actually cook

their meals out there,” Keith said. “Some still have grills, but many only have one

grill per rest area.”

But the overall goal for these basic roadside rest stops was to offer fatigued drivers

a place to stop, eat and stretch their legs, he said.

“Texas has more driver fatigue-related accidents in the nation,” Keith said. “Along

these long, lonesome highways, there are very few options for places to stop.”

Since 2006, however, the number of fatigue-related accidents has declined 24 percent

with the advent of snazzy, tourist center-style, safe rest stops.

“We have changed the designs of these rest areas to make them a more pleasing place to

provide distraction from the road. In remote areas of Texas, the rest areas provide

offices for local county sheriff’s deputies and Texas Department of Public Safety

troopers as well as surveillance security systems, computerized interactive exhibits,

air conditioned lobbies, playground equipment, exercise equipment and vending machines

for food, drinks and snacks.

With the fancier safe rest areas, are the older-model picnic areas worth the taxpayers’

money for maintenance and repairs?

“They are still functional and a lot of them are in scenic areas. People like to stop

and enjoy the views, the flora and fauna, and they provide a place for people to take a

break,” Keith said.

Texas’ transportation officials keep up with travel issues in other states, and one

prominent argument for hanging onto the old roadside parks is the public demand, he

said.

In Virginia, for example, budget restraints brought about the closing of rest areas

statewide, bringing about a round of angry protests, because the public deemed them

useful.

A candidate for governor campaigned that if elected he would re-open all the roadside

parks within days after he took office. “He won and he did,” Keith said.

jwilliams@tdtnews.com

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram

Seven Cedars Park east of Milano on Texas 79, a relic from an earlier time

photo by Shirley Williams

.