Friday, October 20, 2017

Pondering Ponder

Historic house in Ponder
One of our small communities has had a rather infamous history. According to local legend, Bonnie and Clyde tried to rob the Ponder State Bank the week after it went broke. This may not be true since it’s not listed in the Barrow Gang's activities; the robbery may have been attempted by another outlaw, Eddie Bentz. This didn’t prevent movie makers from filming the Bonnie and Clyde in the north Texas area with some of the actors and other workers visiting Ponder during their time in near this town.



The town’s name was originally Gerald, and the land around it was pasture for cattle. After about 1852 the area was farmed by the Wakefield
Pastureland
family. They eventually built rent houses, and in an area called ‘Wakefield Hill’ built a home. More farmers and ranchers came to the area and the town grew, especially after the Santa Fe railroad arrived in 1886. In 1898 the name was changed to Ponder because the government wouldn’t allow two towns with the same name in the same state to have post offices.





Ponder remained a community with dirt roads until the 1920s. During the
Railway
spring wagons would bury wheels up to their axels in the mud and horses would sink to their bellies. In 1921, Farm Road 156 was first graveled and continued to be until the 1940s. In 1941 it was paved and concrete bridges were added. The rest of the county roads were graveled, and finally in 1955 all of the roads in town were blacktopped.









Four carrots
Ponder continues to grow with the area and has become a bedroom community with a few shops and restaurants. We were searching for a Caribbean restaurant that I had found online when we visited Ponder.  Since we couldn’t find one restaurant we tried another, Ranchman’s 
Left T to B: Menu, Chicken fried steak, Rolls
Right T to B: BLT, Red Cabbage
Steakhouse
. This restaurant has been around for lots of years and has the reputation of being a good place for lunch, and dinner (110 W Bailey St, Ponder, TX 76259, 940-479-2221). Evidently, if you want a baked potato with your dinner, you have to order it early in the day so they have it ready for your meal. We got to lunch just after 1:00 PM, which was a good time since the lunch crowd was just leaving. Both Dave and I had to take time to read the menu. Along with what there is to eat, the menu provides the history of the restaurant and some other interesting tidbits. One of the first things that attracted my attention was the fried green tomatoes, so Dave ordered those along with a chicken fried steak, red cabbage, and mashed potatoes. I had the Rancher’s BLT with fried green tomatoes on it. There were also homemade rolls to accompany Dave’s lunch. It was all good, but the stand-out for both of us was the red cabbage. It was both spicy and sweet with a nice crunch. Service was good and the prices were reasonable.


For information about my rating system, see Reading the Reviews.
Ranchman's Mural
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