Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
Bob Wills slept here
Celebrities, Peace, Over The Rainbow
by Mike Brown - Editor
Rockdale Reporter - 2015-06-04
It’s like going back in time. With wi-fi.
Rockdale’s Rainbow Courts defies description in the lodging industry.
Started in 1918 and still operated by the same family, the scenic, historic and unique
motel is still going strong and keeps getting recognized for what is, a Texas treasure.
It was featured in the May issue of Texas Highways magazine, it has won the coveted
TripAdvisor Certificate of excellence three times and during the next year will receive a
Texas Historical Commission marker.
“We keep re-inventing ourselves,” co-owner Joan Ratliff laughed. “That’s happened a lot
to Rainbow Courts over the years.”
Begun at the end of World War I by Nathan M. Bullock, Rainbow Courts was later owned by
his brother, Ira Benjamin Bullock, Joan’s grandfather.
She and husband, Dan, purchased the motel from her parents, H. N. “Speedy” and Marjorie
Crockett in 1992.
CELEBRITIES — “We have quite a history,” she said. “Bob Wills came by and stayed here. He
paid for his stay with a record album. And my grandparents didn’t even own a record
player.”
Sadly, the album has been lost. “I’ve got everybody in the family looking for it,”
Ratliff said. “That would be something to have, especially if he autographed it.”
Playwright Tennessee Williams signed the guest book, too. Like Wills, he didn’t pay in a
conventional way, according to the Rainbow Courts ledger, but it doesn’t say how.
(If the motel archives turn up an unpublished play by the famous writer, submitted as
payment, Rainbow will really hit the history books.)
But the most familiar celebrity to make Rainbow Courts a home away from home was Liz
Carpenter, press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson.
Carpenter loved the Rainbow’s showpiece guest quarters the Garden Room, a stunning
window-studded cottage rebuilt from the original courts’ laundry room.
“She would call me up and say ‘get my room, ready,” Ratliff recalls. “I knew the Garden
Room was booked again.”
That room includes a 1929 vintage monitor refrigerator with a massive circular cooling
element on top.
The refrigerator isn’t a decoration. It still works.
IRISES — Rainbow Courts was special from the start.
N. M. and wife Lenora Bullock opened the business in 1918 as “Rainbow Tourist Camp,”
named by Mrs. Bullock.
A student of Greek Mythology, according to family stories, Lenora was fascinated with
Iris, goddess of the rainbow.
She — Lenora, not the goddess — even planted irises on the grounds, a yearly blooming
reminder of how Rainbow got its name.
On Nov. 12, 1931, the Bullock home at the motel burned to the ground and much of the
family history was lost.
But, like the mythological phoenix — an allusion Lenora Bullock would have appreciated —
the business rose from the ashes bigger and better.
By 1936 what became highway 79 was upgraded and suddenly the Bullocks had a full-scale
U.S. highway running past their business.
Ira Benjamin (I.B.) Bullock moved from Breckenridge to Rockdale to help his brother.
I.B., wife Algia and their children planted a garden and trees and built new cottages.
Algia arose every morning at 3:30 to cook their hungry tourist lodgers a breakfast of
eggs, ham, fried chicken, biscuits, homemade jam and more.
BOOM DAYS — The I.B. Bullock family ran the motel for more than four decades as it
acquired its lofty reputation.
In 1945 he purchased the 1880s-era Talbott Ridge schoolhouse, moved it to the site and
converted it into three guest cottages. It’s still there and still accepting guests.
An 1895 structure — dubbed the Carriage House, it was likely used for horse-drawn
carriages — became part of Rainbow Courts in the 1990s.
Alcoa came to town in 1951, ushering a period of growth for Rainbow Courts.
The Bullocks remodeled in the 1950s as the site grew to 52 cottages and the main office
was covered with Austin Stone veneer. I. B Bullock died in 1970.
In 1975, Algia sold the property to their three children.
Howard and Marjorie Bullock Crockett operated the motel until the Ratliffs purchased it
in 1992.
NICHE — “We had to find our niche in the motel business,” Joan Ratliff recalled. “We
wanted it to be unique. There are a lot of nice motel chains throughout the country but
they really all offer the same room. We wanted ours to be something different.”
Many of the motel units had fallen into disrepair and the Ratliffs set about renovating
them but keeping the original structures.
“Every room is diffent,” she said. “Our customers love that.”
As a result, guests can still stay in cottages built in the 1920s and 1930s and still
have wi-fi and flat screen televisions.
There are also newer rooms built in the 1960s.
But the “nuts and bolts” of the Roarings 20s “camp era” remain, including the distinctive
U-shape layout. It continues to be recognized as one of the “survivors” of that era.
PEACE — Ratliff says the key to Rainbow Courts survival in the post-Alcoa era has been in
making it special, in finding what guests want.
“They want service, something unique and a peaceful place to stay, still with all the
modern technology amenities” she said.
“Everything about us is designed to provide that.” “We love to look out evenings at our
garden area, with the flowers and landscapes, and see our guests in the those white
(angle backed) Adirondack chairs, in the middle of buildings not 80 and 90 years old,
logged onto our wi-fi, tapping away on their smart phones, tablets and laptop.”
TripAdvisor.Com’s Excellence Award is a “biggie.”
It’s based on actual visitor comments after having stayed at a lodging site. The almost
150 comments on TripAdvisor.Com about Rainbow Courts range from positive to rapturous.
Here are some:
“It’s heaven on earth.”
“To find such a delightful place to stay was astonishing.”
“I’m looking for an excuse to return.”
And perhaps the best of all: “It reminded me of nearly 60 years back when traveling with
my parents across the US where the owners/managers lived in their quarters attached to
the check-in desk. What a pleasant reception when the owner greeted me and told me some
of the history of their place.
“The rooms were also a reminder of long ago, but the heater and bathroom facilities were
‘modern,’ thank goodness. Possibly one of the best night’s sleep I’d had in a while.
“I live in Southern California now, and this experience made me appreciate the Texas
friendliness.
I was on the road early the next morning, but wish I had the time to stay a while and
just sit in one of the swings on the lawn or the chair on my patio.”
So do its owners, all of them for the past 97 years.
All Credit for this article
goes to Mike Brown and the
Rockdale Reporter
goes to Mike Brown and the
Rockdale Reporter
Rainbow Courts Garden Room - Owner Joan Ratliff shows off the Garden Room - a favorite of Liz Carpenter - press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson. Celebrities who have stayed at Rainbow Courts have included Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing playwright Tennessee Williams, and Liz "Get My Room Ready" Carpenter
Part of Rainbow Courts’ charm is its landscaping; Adirondack chairs are favorites for guests to kick back, relax.
Bullock family members attended old Talbott Ridge school, now three cottages.
The Carriage House was built in 1895 when transportation had four legs and hooves.
Below top left: Irises, planted three-quarters of a century ago by Lenora Bullock, pay annual tribute to Rainbow’s early days. Bullock family members attended old Talbott Ridge school, now three cottages.
Photo from the 1920s shows historic Rainbow Courts in the ‘tourist camp’ days.
