Tangling up Temple

This is the third year we’ve been to Temple for the Texas Bead Retreat

The Hub in Temple

and we’ve discovered another place to eat in this little town. While the old town remains relatively unchanged, except for some refurbishing, the area around this original spot is booming. The two previous blogs are Tempting Temple and Beaders on the Road. They have historical information and also some reviews of where we stayed and ate during those visits.

Beaders on the Road

It was a beautiful winter day in Texas, bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60s,

Interesting door design,
downtown Temple

when three of us hit the road to Temple, Texas for fun with likeminded artists and artisans. Temple is a relatively small town fairly close to the center of the state; most of its ‘good stuff’ is hidden from the view when you’re on the freeway. Last year we nearly missed the town because of the highway construction; this year the construction seems worse but we found the correct exit with only one detour. What can you expect from an area suffering/benefiting from a rapid growth in population?

Tempting Temple

On the road to Temple, Texas

We headed to Temple, Texas for a bead retreat, thinking that although it is the home of actor Rip Torn, astronaut Bernard A. Harris, Jr., and football player “Mean" Joe Greene, there was nothing in the area but a railroad trestle, a bridge over the freeway and a few older buildings. What we found was something entirely different. Built as a construction camp for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway on land purchased from Jonathan E. Moore, it was called Mud Town or Tanglefoot by local residents.  The town was actually named after Santa Fe Railroad official, Bernard Moore Temple, a civil engineer and former surveyor with railroad.