Miriam McFate Travel Journal - 1926

Wed, Nov 10, 1926

Cold this morning. Froze ice in our wash basin last night. This is the coldest night yet. We thot it was warm in Texas, but not so here. Started 7:30. Drove 50 miles this morning, the country is practically the same. Country is more level than Arkansas. Lots of cotton thro all these sections. The buildings are better. Had one bad stretch of road. Had rained here and the road was a very rough. Eat our dinner in Detroit Texas.

Started again 1:20. Drove on and on. Country just about the same only more rolling. Passed the Morton’s poultry farm here. This was a dandy, looks good to us. All white Leghorns. Drove on it to Paris Texas. This is sure a fine city. Some real dwelling houses in this place. The population is 16,000. Had to changed road number here. Missed our road in this place. While trying to find it we got to see some of the city. We have passed thro little towns all the way into Paris. Cotton everywhere thro this section of Texas.

After leaving Paris we drove out on to the what the people here call the prairie. Great fields of cotton all thro this. Not many trees. Houses about every quarter mile. This is all paved road. You can see the road miles ahead of us. The cotton fields here reminds us of large fields of raspberries. Haven’t had enough frost to make the plants lose their leaves. Looks like it would be hard to pick among so many leaves.

We don’t see many in the fields at work here. Don’t know what they will do with so much cotton when they do get it picked. We have drove 10 miles and have never seen a fence of any kind around the fields. They have a small fence around the house yard and that is all. Only one telephone line along this road.

This road is like all the rest have been. It has a very few cross roads. Drove on to Commerce Texas. Pulled into camp here 5:25. 1 mile from town. We had to register here. Bought milk and butter from the camp keeper.