DAY FIVE: Saturday, 31
March 2012
It was the last full day my parents
were going to be in town, and it was nice and sunny. Mum had noted that in all the different
visits down here, we might’ve tapped out most of the local things or close-by
day trips, so whenever the next visit was, we might have to do an overnight
stay at some location away from the Austin-Round Rock area. We’d figure that out next time around, and
how the logistics would work (why pay for a hotel room for a week in Round Rock
when they’re only going to be in it for a couple days; and it’s not always
feasible to have them stay where I am now).
We decided to head back up to Georgetown to see if the
historical museum was open. That turned
out to be the right thing to do, with very interesting (and amusing)
consequences. Known as the Williamson Museum
Working at the museum that day was
Teresa, one of the people from my writer’s group. I recalled she said that she’d gotten a job
at a “museum in Georgetown ”
but it never occurred to me it was this one.
We hadn’t been at the museum more than ten minutes or so when I spotted
Teresa. She mentioned that her fellow
curator Bob was getting ready to give a tour of the Georgetown court house, as it’s technically
closed on the weekends. That was
something we jumped on, as we’d be able to wander about inside with a guide.
There were a dozen of us on the
tour group, which made things easier for Bob.
Smaller tour groups are always easier, as the guide don’t have to yell
to be heard, nor play shepherd as much to make sure people don’t wander
off. He gave us a history of the area,
and the events leading up to the construction of the court house. We also got to see the center portion, which
was open to allow us to look all the way up to the rotunda, as well as the
actual courtrooms.
On one part of the tour, Bob took
us to one of the side rooms which served as his office. As it was on the second floor, there was a door
which opened to an exterior patio, which Bob said that he’d often take his
lunch out there. He used the patio to
explain more of the history and construction, and also made references to some
of the buildings around the town square.
Bob’s been doing this tour for years he said, and always brought groups
out here. That’s what made what happened
next funny, even though Bob was rather mad at it.
Somehow after we’d gone out to the
patio, the doors had shut and latched.
There was no handle on the outside, thus no way to actually open
them. Bob had never seen the door latch
before, as he usually had to secure the doors from the inside when he was at
his office. The latch was a small
deadbolt at the very top of this large wooden-framed glass door. There was a chain hanging down which could
disengage the lock, provided that someone could reach it. Because there was nothing else connecting the
door on that said, Bob and Teresa pried it open as much as they could, but they
still couldn’t reach the chain. I’ve
never seen a glass door bend in the manner it did, and was pretty sure they
were going to break it. If they had
something which would reach another six or eight inches, then the ring could’ve
been grasped.
There was no one else in the court
house because it was a weekend, and Bob had locked the exterior doors once we’d
gone inside, so we couldn’t flag anyone down on the street for assistance. We did wave and smile at them. Teresa had her phone on her, and called the
only other person on duty at the museum today, and had her come over to unlock
the doors. It was good there was a spare
set of court house keys available. In
all, we were “stuck” on the patio for all of fifteen minutes; not very long, so
we were pretty good natured about it.
One lady commented we needed to have shirts printed up that said “Free
the Georgetown Twelve.” Teresa smiled at
the comments, but we could tell that Bob was not amused.
Once back inside, we were brought into
the other of the two courtrooms inside the building, the one where history was
made. Bob gave us detailed accounts of a
case in the early 1920s where local attorney Dan Moody took on the Ku Klux
Klan, and won. In that time period (and
especially in the south), the power of the Klan was pretty absolute, and no one
had been ever able to get a successful prosecution before. That was usually because no matter how
concrete the evidence was, the “good ol’ boy network” made sure the juries were
made up of people sympathetic to the accused Klan member, or outright fear of
the Klan was enough to keep others silent or “rocking the boat.”
Bob gave us all the details of this
fascinating case, the events that lead up to it, and how as a result the
national power of the KKK had been severely weakened by this. During the hearing, the courtroom was so
packed with spectators that people actually climbed the trees next to the
building in order to watch what happened.
As he talked, the wheels turned in my head, as I envisioned a dramatic
movie showing this important historical event.
I pictured a story which matched the setting of To Kill A Mockingbird, but with a positive ending the way Amistad had. Teresa asked me if I was going to knock out a
screenplay of this for the next NaNoWriMo project. As fascinating a story that was, I think I’d
prefer to watch something produced by a team with far more experience than I
have. I haven’t completely ruled out the
possibility, mind you, but that’s a project which would take a lot more time
than what I have currently available in order to do it justice (no pun
intended).
At the conclusion of the court
house tour, we went back to the Williamson
Museum
The museum gift shop had a book on
the life of Dan Moody, but the portion on the trial covered a scant ten pages,
so I didn’t pick it up. Had there been
something with more meaty details, I probably would’ve scooped it up. Teresa’s comment that because there wasn’t
one available, then it was a challenge to me to write one. Like I don’t have enough on my plate to write
about currently. >grin< I do see some merit in the idea, and haven’t
passed on the suggestion, but I certainly think someone from the Williamson
Country Historical Society who is intimately familiar with the subject
(read: Bob) should draft it.
I knew there was some sort of
“historical park” in the area, but Teresa said the one I was thinking of wasn’t
in Georgetown , but a short distance to the west
in Sun City .
I was pretty sure I’d read something in the Community Impact that mentioned Georgetown , but who was I to argue with a
museum employee. It was the middle part
of the afternoon, so it’d make a nice drive over there, and would bring us up
to dinner. Mum did ask Teresa if she
wanted to meet us later, as we were planning on heading to Texas Land &
Cattle. Teresa appreciated the offer,
but had to decline because she already had family plans.
The main portion of this was a curved
wall, with an American flag, and six other flags to represent the various
service branches. There’s a T-shaped
brick walkway leading up to the wall, and there are names on the bricks which
listed branch and conflict. Some of
those bricks also have other US
cities on them. As this was supposed to
be for Williamson County (Texas ),
I’m not sure why other states are listed there.
It could be the person in question was originally from Williamson County
and moved to the city later, or (more likely) the city was the birthplace of
someone who later became a Williamson
County Glens Falls , NY
To one side of the T-plaza is a
wall with names on it which states specifically these were people from Williamson County Glens Falls might’ve been,
his name wasn’t listed on the wall.
Believe me, we checked to make sure.
From this location, we just shot
westward a bit until I was able to pick up 183, which would bring us to the
Texas Land & Cattle my parents liked to go (the one near Lakeline
Mall). We had a good dinner, even though
our waiter was a little on the scatterbrained side. He didn’t get anything wrong, but just seemed
to be confused a lot. He obviously
wasn’t a new employee, as there’s usually someone shadowing a newbie. We just marked that up as an interesting and
bizarre situation.
The next morning I acted as taxi as
I brought Mum & Dad down to the airport, and another fun week of
exploration was concluded.
More information can be found on the places we visited at:
Veteran’s Memorial Plaza
*** 30 ***
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