Miriam McFate Travel Journal - 1926

Sat, Nov 13, 1926

Did not start very early this morning. When we left Eastland we could look any direction and see oil wells. It is 10 miles to our next town. Timber most all the way. Very few houses till we came within a mile of the next town. This town is Cisco, Tex. It is quite aa large place, about like Grinnell. We are 51 miles from Abilene. Drove on thro the same kind of country we have passed thro. Got gas in the little town of Baird. 22 cents for gasoline here.

On again. Out around the hills. All up grade. We left pavement here. Graveled roads now. Drove on into the town of Clyde. Have a 16 mile detour from here to Abilene. This detour was terribly rough. Very poor country all thro here. We eat dinner in this place. The boys went to get some more oil. Left here 2:10. This is our last big city before reaching El Paso.

Abeline has a population of 10,274. Didn’t have to go thro the main part so avoided lots of traffic. Stopped for gasoline out at the edge of the city. Drove on, the road is very level again. Some farming done thro here. Quite a lot of cotton raised here. When we passed thro Merkel Tex. we saw hundreds of bales of cotton piled up out side of the gin. Have had some awful bridge detours this afternoon. Pretty near twisted our house into. These roads are awful rough. The wind is blowing awful hard and it takes a lot of power. After leaving Trent Texas we has another 4 mile detour before we reach Sweetwater Tex. This detour is awful sandy. We can see another chain of hills now. Drove on a few miles further. Pulled into camp on a free camp ground 6 miles east of Sweetwater. This is right at the foot of the hills. Looks like it may rain again.