CROSSROADS REPORT
By Kent Brunette
From The Pages Of The February 15, 2006
Hearne Democrat Newspaper
The Hearne Chamber of Commerce building at 304 South Market Street is being
transformed into a Hearne Museum and Visitors’ Center. The chamber has been busy
disseminating tourist and economic development information from this site for quite some time
now.
In recent years, items of historic interest relating to Hearne and Robertson County have
been collected by the chamber or donated to it by civic-minded individuals and businesses.
As for furnishings, Bart Lockhart donated two old Mahogany display cases from
Culpepper Jewelry and a wooden hand truck used at the depot. Dr. Marc Catalina donated an
old wooden desk which matches one the chamber already had. A Hearne couple is considering
donating yet another desk. Any and all other contributions are welcome!
The chamber’s recent renovation was done, in part, to create a nicer place in which to
welcome visitors to Hearne as well as a place to display items relating to Hearne. Creation of a
Hearne Museum and Visitors Center at the chamber will give tourists a place to look around when
visiting. Some of the items in the museum will likely be transferred to the Historic Hearne Depot
and Camp Hearne when these facilities are restored or preserved.
The most recent additions to the chamber collection include the old City Café neon sign
and the top of an old telephone/telegraph pole from a Hearne railroad right of way. In the very
near future, Union Pacific plans to donate a working railroad crossing signal (which will be placed
in the front window) and a working three-tier stacked train directional signal.
These will join a set of Hearne depot blueprints from the U.S. Library of Congress’
American Memory Collection and Historic American Buildings Survey. A large mounted plat
showing lands owned by the original New Baden settlers (a Robertson County town founded by
the International & Great Northern Railroad which also came through Hearne) will also be
displayed. Historic maps from the Texas General Land Office showing the Hearne & Brazos
Valley Railway route will also hopefully be obtained.
Since November, the Brazos Valley Museum in Bryan has been featuring a Camp
Hearne exhibit which runs through the end of May of this year. In early June, most of the items in
this exhibit will be brought to the Hearne Chamber for permanent display. Many important
articles from the Camp Hearne Collection assembled by Dr. Michael Waters at Texas A&M
University will be coming to Hearne as well.
Items relating to Camp Hearne and Robertson County railroads will join the chamber’s
expanding historic photograph collection. This collection includes 1930s and 1940s photographs
of Hearne’s churches, government buildings, restaurants, commercial buildings, public facilities,
and residences. A binder showing “Then” and “Now” Hearne photographs will help visitors
identify the geographic locations of the photos on the walls.
A special “Silent Screens” display will highlight the old Queen, Chatmas, and Hearne
Drive-In Theaters. Photographs of the inside of the Queen and of the old drive-in are needed.
Architectural drawings and old photos of the Robertson County Courthouse and Jail will also be
shown.
Additional displays will showcase livestock and agricultural products grown and raised in
Robertson County. A dozen or so Mason jars filled with white and yellow corn, cotton, soy beans,
hay, pecans, and other items already pay homage to Robertson County’s agricultural roots.
Information will also be provided on the major industries in the county as well as the types of
game, fish, and wildlife found in the county.
The chamber is working with Ronnie Ritter, the owner of the lot on the south side of the
chamber building, to create additional parking for the museum and visitors center. Much of this
area was cleaned-up last summer in preparation for the chamber’s grand opening and in
anticipation of the need to create a parking lot which could handle tour busses as well as cars.
Now for something totally different. Website visitors who have gone to
www.robertsoncounty.info and clicked on “cemeteries” may have noticed the online list growing in
recent years. Originally totaling 50 cemeteries, this list now includes over 155 cemeteries and
burial locations.
This list expansion is due, in large part, to the efforts of yours truly and his 85-year old
dad, William Jacob "Bill" Brunette. We have spent lots of time trying to locate and record the
geographic coordinates of all of Robertson County's burial locations.
With a global positioning system (GPS) unit in hand, my dad and I, Robertson County
Historical Commission Chair Cathy Lazarus, and other volunteers have been looking at land
records, knocking on doors, badgering relatives, calling property owners, traipsing across
pastures, wading through creeks, and fighting underbrush to find lost or forgotten cemeteries.
The fruits of these labors have been turned over to the Texas Department of
Transportation (TxDOT) which has updated the Robertson County map to reflect all of the
county's known 155+ cemeteries.
Two updated maps, one for Robertson County (Base Sheet 1) and one for Hearne
(Supplementary Sheet A), are now online at http://txdot.lib.utexas.edu. Once at a map, you can
click on “resolution” or “image size” to manipulate a map to find what you’re looking for.
Updating maps to reflect cemetery locations is important for several reasons. Oil and gas
companies routinely use these maps to identify cemetery and burial locations when engaged in
exploration and drilling activities.
When planning new power plants and new coal mine sites, a company like TXU needs to
know where all cemeteries are located so efforts can be made to protect historic cemetery sites.
TxDOT and county governments need this information when expanding existing roads or building
new ones.
Knowing the locations of cemeteries is also extremely helpful to family history and other
researchers. When researching part of my family history in northern Alabama, I hit a major
stumbling block when no cemetery list or map had been created for the rural area I was
researching. Many local folks and old-timers had never even heard of some of the mid-to latenineteenth century burials I was trying to find.
People looking for long-lost ancestors and relatives in Robertson County are not going to
have that problem. Online visitors will have fingertip access to both a list of cemeteries and the
TxDOT map showing cemetery locations. Hopefully, these researchers, historians, and other
folks will visit Hearne and spend some money while in Robertson County.
While you can access these maps online right now, Cathy Lazarus is diligently working
on preparing these updated maps for publication in the upcoming “Treasures Of Robertson
County” supplement to the Robertson County Newspapers in Hearne, Calvert, & Franklin.
The plan is to have a Robertson County map (complete with cemeteries) stretching
across the two inside pages of this tabloid newspaper. A map of Hearne will be on the opposite
side of one page while information about Camp Hearne will appear on the opposite side of
another page.
Extra copies of this insert will be printed and widely distributed free-of-charge from the
Hearne Chamber of Commerce, Hearne City Hall, and local businesses.
Crossroads Report appears weekly in the Hearne Democrat. Reports are archived at
www.hearnetexas.info. Click on the “Crossroads Report” link to view past reports.
Send comments or suggestions to chamber@hearnetexas.info or 304 S. Market Street.
The views expressed in this report are those of the author & do not necessarily reflect the views
of Hearne’s 4A & 4B Sales Tax Boards or the Hearne Chamber of Commerce.