The tiny town of Tioga, Texas squats on Highway 377 in Grayson County one town north of Pilot Point, where I showed you the bare nekkid ladies on the mural. Tioga was established back in 1881 and was famed for its mineral water. Today, it seems like it is holding its breath and waiting for better days.
Gene Autry
For several years, Tioga tried to host The Gene Autry Music Festival. It never really caught fire. Bless their hearts, the Tioga Museum and Heritage Association couldn’t afford to keep it up. If you drive through the town, you will see why. The recession seems to have hit this town hard, and almost everything is for sale.
Waiting for an owner
An entire strip of shops is for sale, so if you ever wanted to buy a whole doggone town this might be your chance.
It might need some renovation.
I didn't say it was beautiful.
I’d love to show you some interesting pictures of the town, but on a rainy drizzly day it didn’t seem worth the effort to look for anything else of interest. I’m sure the people who live in Tioga love it, but I figure it has one saving grace: it’s about 70 miles from Dallas.
You can look at that either way, can’t you? If you like small towns, you can heave a sigh of relief that you are that far from Dallas, and if you need the night life, you can rest assured that it’s not far away.
Do you want to buy a town? What in Thunder would you do with it?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I always find it very sad to contemplate the demise of so many little towns -like this one you presented here. The little village where I was born, raised and still live here 60 plus years later has gone through its own private depression. When I was a child there were two general stores here, a bar, the Moose, Slovak Club and four churches in the village and one just on the line of the village. And, we had a post office too. There was also a tiny restaurant back then but it died in the 50s -the other things did take a little longer to disappear. Now, we have one church in town and the little bitty church on the outskirts still stands though it’s only in use for special occasions. But since 1994, we have had no post office! And that was a really sad thing to lose for the entire village -no place where people could congregate, gossip, learn about friends, neighbors -or even enemies, I suppose. And more and more the kids as they grow up, they leave for what they figure to be greener pastures too. What’s not to love about a little town anyway? They’ll always be number 1 in my book!
Though I love small towns, Jeni, I like to visit them more than I would love to live in them! As I’ve grown older, I enjoy getting out and about more. I want my entertainment to be nearby. Sounds like you had an interesting “village” when you were younger.
Did ya see the smallest jail in Texas while there? They say it’s the smallest one!
I’ve seen it before, but I didn’t think to stop that day. It was a rainy, blah day. I’ll catch it next time. It gives me a good reason to go back.