Texas Auto Trails - The Southeast
by Myra Hargrave McIlvain
University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0-292-78050-8
(c) 1982
First Edition
All roads lead from Houston in this entertaining and informative set of driving tours through southeast Texas.
Here are six "auto trails" that will take you away from t he bustling Bayou City to the fascinating small towns and peaceful countryside of southeastern Texas. Whether you make each drive a day's trip or an inexpensive weekend holiday, you will come back refreshed and informed by your journey.
Clear directions and a good map of each route accompany Myra McIlvain's lively tales of the history of the area. She points the way to historic houses, art galleries and museums, unusual features of the landscape, restored hotels and good eating places, antique shops and artists' studios, and other hidden treasures of the southeast Texas countryside.
The trails sweep from orange in the east to Shiner in the wet and from Navasota and Anderson in the north to historic Indianola in the south. Tours radiate from Houston buy may be joined any point along the way.
Travel with Myra McIlvain as your guide and discover
- a Pompeiian villa in the heart of the Golden Triangle
- Sugar Land, home of one of the largest sugar refineries in the United States
- a real-life Peaceable Kingdom of artist and artisans
- the glories of Galveston, whose historic Strand was once the "Wall Street of the Southeast"
- an Indian reservation with over five hundred inhabitants, part of the fabulous Big Thicket of East Texas
- the world's largest oil refining and petrochemical complex
- the sites of a weekly rodeo, an annual Renaissance Festival, and an International Gumbo Cook-off
- and Damon's Mound, the "Wedding cake house," a refuge for prairie chickens, and many more places to go and things to do in one of the most historic regions of our state.
As a free-lance writer Myra Hargrave McIlvain has authorized historical marker narratives for the Texas Historical Commission and a long0running family humor column in the Victoria Advocate. In 1980 she wrote the popular Six Central Texas Auto Tours, which was also illustrated by Virginia Adams Erickson.
Citation
Above was copied from the back of one of the original books we now have in storage
Personal Note from the Author:
The author donated a copy of this book to the museum and included a note card for with the book.
Autographed dedication to Rebecca McIlvain reads:
To Rebecca,
We hope you use this to explore Texas.
Myra
The authors note about the dedication:
Rebecca McIlvain (1951-2012) was my husband's daughter. She was an elementary school teacher and later a bookstore manager.
She loved books and travel.