Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 09/07/18> What comes to mind when you hea...

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The little creamery...

The first thing that comes to mind when people hear the name Brenham is the “little creamery” known as Blue Bell which is famous for their ice cream. There is more to Brenham, Texas though and since I had to be in Brenham on Thursday I thought I would just take some extra time and show you a place that you might haven’t heard about.

Just a quick look...

Don’t get worked up; I will show you a few shots of Blue Bell as well, but only the outside, if I had gone in and took the tour there would be some mad little Papper’s when they would find out, since you get free Blue Bell samples while you tour the creamery.

To give an idea of just Brenham is, it is about half way between Houston and Austin and Hwy 290 is the main highway that skirts the edge of the town. Blue Bell is proud of their heritage and is one of the main employers in the area. The little rolling hills in the area make for some nice scenery and great pasture land for the cows that provide the milk for that ice cream.

Proud heritage...

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Here you will find some nice bronze full size sculptures that capture the history of Blue Bell, most notably the little girl leading her cow and the three founders who built the business from the ground up. Also that old Ford truck by the front door was one of their actually delivery trucks back in the day when they sold milk and had home delivery.

Sign me up...

There are signs pointing the way to all the different areas of the building and are in the style of an era long past, but read closely at the bottom of the sign, the company motto. You will surely like that, and it is true by the way.

Just so you know...

Okay, for the record you can’t miss the Blue Bell factory if you are anywhere in the area you need to stop and see the place. Also, if you have never had any Blue Bell ice cream then you really haven’t had the best ice cream on earth.

The real feature...

The thing that I most wanted to share today is a place called Fireman’s Park. It is a fourteen acre park located right in town, and it has quite a history itself. Way back in 1866 the Union soldiers were occupying Brenham and they didn’t take kindly to what the local newspaper at the time was printing about the soldiers.

The soldiers decided to teach the town a lesson and burned the town down. Not only did they burn it once, they also burned it a second time. So the local town people started their own fire department to fight fires and also to be able to meet and keep tabs on what the Union soldiers were up too.

In November of 1883 the fire department men pulled their money and bought the fourteen acres for the hefty price of $80 an acre and it was deeded over to the fire department in 1884 and then deeded over to the actual town in 1917 from the fire department. The park became the original site of the county fair and a popular German festival called Maifest.

So, that is the history; now I want to tell you what makes this park so special in my eyes.

The Flying Carousel Horses...

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In 1932 the town had a sixteen sided pavilion built that became the home of the Flying Carousel Horses. The building has been redone over the years but it has maintained its original design and also the actual carousel that was installed back in ’32. You just don’t see these kinds of things in small towns and in fact big towns.

The town has maintained it well and it is really a hit with folks of all ages when it is open for rides. Unfortunately, being it was a weekday I wasn’t able to get all the photos of the carousel I would have liked to since it was closed and locked up. So the pictures I did get were taken through the glass windows that are open when the ride is in service. There is so much detail that I couldn’t capture so you will have to make this a destination so you can see it for yourself.

Like a step back in time...

The park features a lot of nice stone walls and wrought iron fencing and is also home to the baseball field that is used by the local high school as their home field. When you walk up to the field it gives you the feeling that you just stepped back in time, it has the stone walls around the outside of the stadium and it has the old steel bleachers with a tin roof over them.

Baseball Capitol of Texas...

Everyone knows that high school football is “king” in Texas, but baseball is big here too. Brenham is the hot bed of high school baseball and the town touts themselves as the “Baseball Capitol of Texas”. I am not going to count all the titles that the Brenham High School has won, you can look at the picture and do that yourself, but just for the record they have won seven state championships. That is pretty damn impressive for a little old farming community out in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t you say?

Times do change...

The park is still a main attraction in the town and the Flying Horses Carousel is definitely the big part of that attraction. I included a shot of one of the more recent additions to the park, the skate board area. Times change and so things get added and some things get taken away, I think it is safe to say that the skate board stuff will be long gone before the Flying Horses Carousel goes away.

When you do find...

So, if and when you do find yourself coming to Brenham for a tour of the home of the best ice cream in the land be sure and stop by Fireman’s Park and enjoy a trip back in time. The carousel operates on the weekend from March through October, but even if you come on a weekday it is worth the short drive from Blue Bell, even if it is just to peek in the windows and see the ride for yourself.