If the Walls Could Talk... (Paris, TX)

My wife recently received her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Love Civic Center in Paris, Texas. I thought it would be a great idea to walk the downtown area afterwards and take photographs of the city's oldest buildings. Since my wife enjoys antiqued places as much as I do, she agreed to the activity, and we both had a great time soaking in the peaceful, quaint ambience of Paris, Texas. Imagine if the walls of the now-abandoned buildings could talk...oh, the stories of Paris we would witness...

One of the many old and large residences in Paris. These types of grand homes were once owned by prominent Paris businessmen, doctors, and lawyers.

My wife and I stumbled on a handsome, small Episcopal church in Paris. The Episcopal denomination in Texas was created by Bishop Leonidas Polk of Louisiana in 1839. The first incarnation of the Episcopal church in Paris was organized by Bishops I.W. Wells, J.E. Roberts, and J.K.P. Campbell on June 9, 1870. The original facility comprised of a frame chapel and log cabin rectory where the Lamar County Courthouse currently stands. However, these structures were destroyed in the 1916 fire. The current church was built in 1917 and furnished by Englishman Richard H. Blyth.

A vacant hotel sits a couple of blocks away from the Paris downtown square. There were several affluent families in the city at the start of the twentieth century; they usually attended weddings and lavish banquets at hotels like this one. The King's Daughters, a women's charitable organization, was created in 1887.

A partially-dismantled structure sits next to a empty apartment building in Paris, TX. Some rumor this facility to be a former home to the legendary John Chisum. Chisum moved to Lamar County when he was 13 years old. In 1852, he became county clerk of Lamar County prior to entering the cattle industry. Following an adventurous life in herding cattle and gambling, Chisum died in 1884. He is buried in Paris.

One of the amazing murals on the side of a vacant building in Paris. The city's early economy was fueled by cotton. Paris, like most of the South, experienced an explosive growth of textile plants in the 1850s when the Industrial Revolution moved from Britain to the United States. More than 20 cotton gins operated in Lamar County and over 100,000 acres of land around Paris were devoted to the raising of "King Cotton" prior to the Civil War.

The interior of an abandoned warehouse in Paris. This facility had no roof and was overgrown with weeds and vines, leading me to believe that it was partially destroyed in the 1916 Paris fire.

Paris's Historic Union Station sits on the south side of town and is currently home to the Valley of the Caddo Museum & Cultural Center (a fantastic place with some fine exhibits on the area's early Natives). The first railroad line in Paris was built in 1875. The city had a wooden union station by the early 1900s, and constructed a brick station in 1912.The station was frequently used in WWII by the soldiers from neighboring Camp Maxey. The last passenger train to leave the Union Station was in 1956.

Paris is a beautiful place! I stand in a gazebo, which is located behind the Lamar County Historical Museum.

'Winston,' my good ole' Kia Soul, sits outside an abandoned Coca Cola/Dr. Pepper bottling factory on the outskirts of Paris. According to local historian Marvin Gorley, 23 different bottling companies were housed in Paris between 1870 and 2017. These carbonated soft drinks played an instrumental role in the city's growth.

Unfortunately, the Lamar County Historical Museum was closed (it was Good Friday... yet, we will try again on another visit). Outside the museum stands a bust of George Washington Wright, a native of Tennessee who settled in the village of Paris in 1839 (the original name for the community was Pinhook). Wright would later follow in the footsteps of his Texas Revolution mentor Sam Houston and vote against secession as a member of the Secession Convention from Lamar County in 1860. He served as a Confederate Provost Marshall during the Civil War and died peacefully in 1877.