When Rommel's Soldiers Came to Texas RoadyGoat

About twenty-five miles northwest of Bryan, on the edge of Hearne in Robertson County, lies a quiet field with a strange history. During World War II, this was the site of Camp Hearne, a massive prisoner-of-war camp. Nearly 5,000 German soldiers passed through it, many of them non-commissioned officers of Erwin Rommel's elite Afrika Korps, captured in North Africa. For these men, the landscape of the Brazos Valley couldn't have been more alien. The prisoners built their own theater, formed orchestras, even raised little stone castles out of the Texas dirt, and the camp served as the central post office for German POW mail across the entire United States. They worked on local farms, sometimes forming surprising friendships with the Texas families they worked for. The camp closed in 1946 and was dismantled, and most of its history was forgotten. But in recent years, locals have worked to preserve the site and its story, unearthing foundations and artifacts and opening a museum with replica barracks. It’s a powerful reminder of a time when a global conflict brought two completely different worlds into contact, right here in the Texas countryside.

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From WWII Airfield to High-Tech Proving Ground RoadyGoat

As you drive on the western edge of Bryan, you might pass the RELLIS Campus, a place that embodies the transformation from 20th-century warfare to 21st-century technology. This land began in 1943 as Bryan Army Air Field, where thousands of pilots trained for World War II and where the Air Force worked out a standardized system of instrument flight training. The base closed after the war, reopened in 1951 for Korean War pilot training, and was finally vacated by the Air Force in 1961. Texas A&M leased the land the next year and bought it outright in 1988, using the old runways and buildings for research. But its most dramatic transformation is happening right now. Today the RELLIS Campus is a state-of-the-art ecosystem for engineering and technology. Its long, flat expanses are used to test autonomous and connected vehicles. Its labs are developing robotics, advanced manufacturing techniques, and highway safety systems. Blinn College built a campus here alongside Texas A&M's engineering programs, creating a shared hub for innovation. It's a place where an old airfield, built for propeller planes, has been repurposed into a proving ground for the self-driving cars and smart infrastructure of tomorrow.

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A Tale of Two Cities: Bryan and College Station RoadyGoat

The road you're likely driving on, Texas Avenue, is the artery that connects Bryan and its twin city, College Station. Understanding the relationship between these two is key to understanding this area. Bryan is the older sibling—the original county seat, a 19th-century railroad town with a historic downtown and gridded streets. College Station is the younger, sprawling sibling that grew up around Texas A&M University. For generations, there was a friendly, and sometimes not-so-friendly, rivalry. Bryan was where you went for government, shopping, and 'real city' life. College Station was the campus. As College Station has exploded in population, that line has blurred. But the two cities maintain distinct identities. Bryan has cultivated its historic and cultural side, while College Station is forever tied to the energy of the university. They are two halves of one of the largest metro areas in Texas, forever linked by roads like this one.

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Colson, Esther Neveille Higgs

1939

Neveille Colson, Texas legislator, was born on July 18, 1902, to Walter J. and Ollie (Jowers) Higgs in Bryan, Texas. She attended school in Bryan and entered Baylor University in Waco in 1923. After a year she took a teaching position in Iola, Grimes County. About 1925 she married Nall Colson, a local football coach. From 1930 to 1932 she continued her education at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) and at Sam Houston State Teachers College (now Sam Houston State University). In 1932 Colson was elected to the Texas House of Representatives for District 27, and his wife accompanied him to the legislature to observe and assist. During the 1930s she also held jobs in the secretary of state's office and the Internal Revenue Service. She studied at the University of Texas but did not complete a degree. By early 1938 the Colsons were divorced, and Nall Colson had died. Neveille Colson ran successfully for the Texas House of Representatives from the district her husband had served. In her tenure from 1939 to 1948 she promoted legislation to improve and fund juvenile corrections, education, and public roads, especially for rural areas. She was the first woman to get a constitutional amendment through the legislature and past a vote by Texas citizens; her bill (1946) ensured that road-use taxes would be directed specifically to the highway department for road construction. She ran successfully for the Texas Senate in the Fifth District, comprising nine counties between Dallas and Houston, in 1948 and thus became the first female Texas representative elected to the Texas Senate. Her district encompassed more state facilities than any but the Austin area. She continued to champion the key interests of her east central Texas constituents-public roads and schools. In 1949 the legislature approved the Colson-Briscoe Act, allocating funds for statewide farm-to-market roads. With the help of federal funds this program enabled the Texas Highway Department nearly to double the number of paved rural roads in the state within two years ( see HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT ). Colson was appointed to the Senate education committee and helped gain passage of the Gilmer-Aiken Laws in 1949. The Texas Highway Department completed the state's longest girder bridge near Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1954. Colson's constituents succeeded in having it named for her, in appreciation for the farm-road legislation and funding she had sponsored to move rural school transportation and mail delivery "out of the mud," as she put it. Though soft-spoken, Colson held her own in the Senate for the remainder of her career. By 1955 she was on nineteen Senate committees and the legislative budget board. She chaired the Senate education committee from 1955 to 1957 and the public health committee from 1957 to 1964. For the 1955 ad interim session she served as president pro tem. Calling herself "the only full-time Senator," she could afford to devote most of her energy to legislation and visiting constituents because her parents supplemented her $3,000 biennial Senate salary. Boundaries for Senate districts were redrawn in 1953 and again in 1966. The latter redistricting forced Colson into competition with incumbent Senator Bill Moore of Bryan to retain her seat. She lost the 1966 election, ending a twenty-eight-year career in the legislature. She subsequently assumed curatorship of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum at Huntsville. Upon retiring from the museum in 1977, she returned to Bryan, where she died on March 3, 1982, after spending her last years at a nursing home. Her remains were buried at the Bryan City Cemetery.

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Mims, Henry Lucius

1912

Henry Lucius Mims, founder of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, composer, geologist, and piano manufacturer, was born on August 13, 1873, in Bryan, Texas, to Alfred and Carrie Mims. His early years were spent attending public schools in Bryan, and he graduated from Bryan High School in 1890. After graduation, Mims taught in the Bryan public school system for two terms. During this time, he focused on history and mathematics under the tutelage of private White instructors. In April 1893 he was hired as a substitute railway postal clerk. Several months later in September, Mims was granted a provisional promotion to the Houston and Texas Central Railway; this resulted in permanent employment three months later. Mims progressed from the entry level pay grade of $800 per year to the highest level at $1,700 per year. He was one of two African Americans who managed a Class "C" line railway crew in the state. On December 30, 1896, Mims married Nannie B. Turner of Houston. To this union, two sons were born, Leonard and Alfred. Mims was an active member of the choir in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Houston. As Mims rose through the ranks in the postal service, he and other clerks became concerned about the diminishing opportunities for African-American postal clerks once President Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. The Democratic administration encouraged restricting the privileges of African Americans and limiting their opportunities for advancement by placing them in positions of less importance than White employees. It was in this environment that Mims attended a meeting with other disgruntled railway clerks, including J. L. Sweatt, T. R. Brown, M. B. Patten , and others to discuss African-American representation in the railway postal service. As a result of this meeting, the Progressive Postal League was formed, and it sent a delegation to the Chattanooga convention where the National Alliance of Postal Employees was founded. Not only was Mims a founder of this organization, he served as the first president in 1913 and was reelected for a second term in 1914 at the St. Louis convention. Mims was active in civic organizations, which included the Knights of Pythias . His interest in music was reflected in his ownership of Mims and Sons, a piano and church organ manufacturing company, and his composition of several songs. Mims died on March 11, 1942, in Houston of heart disease. Burial arrangements were provided by Collins-Foster Funeral Home, and he was buried in Oak Park Cemetery.

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Ward, Seth

1858

Seth Ward, Methodist bishop, son of Samuel Goode and Sarah Ann Ward, was born in a log cabin near Bryan, Texas, on November 15, 1858. His parents tutored him at home. On January 5, 1886, he married Margaret E. South at Bryan, and they had three children. Ward was ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1881. After serving as a junior minister on the Corsicana circuit, he was appointed successively to Centerville, Kosse, Calvert, St. James Church of Galveston, Huntsville, the Houston circuit, and Shearn Church of Houston. As head of the field work of the Twentieth Century Commission on Education, he succeeded in securing an average of a dollar a member for Methodist educational work. He was secretary of the Texas Conference from 1898 to 1900, when he was appointed conference secretary of education. After the Galveston hurricane of 1900 he united St. John's and St. James's churches into the First Methodist Church of Galveston. For four years he was assistant missionary secretary at the General Conference; while holding that position, in 1906, he was elected bishop at the General Methodist Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, the first native Texan to become a bishop in the Methodist Church . Seth Ward College at Plainview and Ward Memorial Church at Austin were named for him. Ward was twice elected to preside at missionary conferences on Methodism in Japan, China, and Korea. On his second visit to the Orient, he died at Kobe, Japan, on September 20, 1909. He was buried in Houston.

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Texas A&M Corps of Cadets

1876

Soon after its opening in 1876, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A&M) established the Corps of Cadets to fulfill its mandate to instruct its students (all-male until the early 1960s) in military science. A&M contributed more officers to America's WW II effort than any other institution, includin the U.S. Military Academy. Many of the Corps' traditional activities, such as the Aggie Band, Fish Drill Team, and Ross Volunteers, have gained national and international recognition. A&M's elite Corps of Cadets continues to dominate the University's unique public image.

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Town Named for William Joel Bryan

1831

(1814-1903) 
 Native of Missouri. Member of prominent family who were Texas statesmen, planters, developers. Grandson of Moses Austin, who obtained from Mexico charter for American colony in Texas, but died before making settlement. Nephew of Stephen F. Austin, "Father of Texas", who actually established the colony. 
 Came to Texas with his mother, Emily Austin Bryan Perry, in 1831. During Texas Revolution, fought in Battle of Bexar, 1835. For 71 years was a planter on land near Peach Point, where the bachelor Stephen F. Austin had a room reserved for him in Perry Home. 
 As eldest nephew, inherited family leadership when Stephen F. Austin died in 1836. Backed his brothers' careers, especially in the case of Guy M. Bryan, U.S. Congressman 1858-1860, and for many years a leader in Texas government. 
 During the Civil War, cared for business interests of his 4 sons in the Confederate Army. At his own expense fed Confederate troops stationed near his plantation to defend the Texas coast. 
 Backed construction of deep water harbor at mouth of the Brazos. During building of Houston & Texas Central Railroad, donated site for Bryan, which in 1866 became county seat of Brazos County. (1965)

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Queen Theatre

1913

QUEEN THEATRE A MOVIE THEATRE HAS BEEN AT THIS LOCATION SINCE 1913 AND NAMED “THE QUEEN” SINCE 1914. IT WAS ORIGINALLY LOCATED IN THE THREE-STORY STODDARD HOTEL BUILT HERE IN 1889. THE SCHULMAN FAMILY PURCHASED THE THEATRE BUSINESS IN 1926 AND THE BUILDING IN 1938. IT WAS REPLACED BY A MODERN STRUCTURE WITH STEEL FRAMEWORK, AIR CONDITIONING AND INDIRECT LIGHTING DESIGNED BY PETTIGREW AND WORLEY OF DALLAS. THE TALL, WHITE FAÇADE WAS TOPPED WITH A REVOLVING, NEON-LIT CROWN. IT REOPENED ON NOV. 21, 1939 AND CONTINUED FOR OVER 30 YEARS. VACANT AND IN DISREPAIR, THE BUILDING WAS PURCHASED BY THE DOWNTOWN BRYAN ASSOCIATION IN 2010 AND RESTORATION BEGAN. THE QUEEN IS THE ONLY EXAMPLE OF STREAMLINE MODERNE ARCHITECTURE ON MAIN STREET.

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Bryan, Texas

Music in Bryan

Songs About Bryan

Artists From Bryan

Rivers & Roads in Song near Bryan

History of Bryan

When Rommel's Soldiers Came to Texas RoadyGoat

From WWII Airfield to High-Tech Proving Ground RoadyGoat

A Tale of Two Cities: Bryan and College Station RoadyGoat

Colson, Esther Neveille Higgs

Mims, Henry Lucius

Ward, Seth

Texas A&M Corps of Cadets

Town Named for William Joel Bryan

Queen Theatre

Things to Do in Bryan

Everything Near Bryan