Sulphur Springs, TX

My youngest years were spent in Sulphur Springs, TX, a small town of less than 15,000 located about 60 miles east of Dallas. Until I was in 6th grade, I was a small town, country girl.

Sulphur Springs is the dairy capital of Texas. Some of the major employers are:
A.P. Green Refractories, Associated Milk Producers, Bell Concrete Concrete, Birthright Gas Processing, Borden Dairy Products, Burney Valve Remanufacturing, Clayton Homes, Contech
Const. Products, Crystal Feed Mill, Custom Shutters, Echo Pub. Co., Inc., Feeders Supply

When I was in elementary school, other kids would bring their pets to school for show-and-tell. Some of the ones I remember are turtles, baby pigs, snakes, rabbits, and baby chicks. My first grade teacher had pet snakes in her room. Our class (and the other first grade classes) would bring little frogs (about the size of a quarter) that you could catch in the yard to feed them. We would then all stand around and watch the snakes eat. One of the other first grade teachers had baby chicks in incubators.

I once got my picture in the paper when we had a guest speaker with a large collection of arrowheads.

There was a Dairy Queen at the end of the street where my elementary school was. We had lots of ice cream parties and special trips to Dairy Queen when we won contests like collecting canned food or something like that. All the elementary schools were named after heroes of the battle of the Alamo (Travis--mine, Bowie, Houston, and Austin).

When the area was first settled, springs of sulphur were abundant, hence the modern name, Sulphur Springs.

The courthouse is a big attraction. It was built with no clock because one of the county's father's said, "if you get up when the sun rises and go to bed when it sets, you don't need a clock."




The SW Dairy Museum and Learning Center at 1200 Houston Street contains exhibits depicting all aspects of milk production and processing, from the early 20th Century to the present.


Some of the big attractions when I lived there were: Kroger, the JCPenny cataloge ordering store, Braum's (for ice cream and burgers), the Civic Center, the cattle auctions I used to attend with my Grandpa, and the city pool. Some things they have now that they didn't then: Chili's a movie theater, potable drinking water year round, Cooper Lake where you can go swimming in the summer, a wide variety of fast food restaurants, and a Super Wal-Mart (not that I would ever shop there).


Living in a small town means that you always see people you know. It also means there are a lot of festivals. The Dairy Festival is held the second weekend in June and celebrates the dairy industry. There is dancing, craft stuff, a carnival, a variety of dairy activities and the Texas State Champion Homemade Ice Cream Freeze Off contest. The Fall Festival is held the third week of September and includes the County Fair, a beauty contest, a golf tournament, an arts and crafts fair and last but certainly not least, the World Champion Hopkins County Stew Contest. If I remember correctly, part of the beauty contest is milking a cow.


Fortunately, I did not spend my whole life in a small town. If I did, fewer people in Rhode Island would look perplexed when I told them I was from Texas. They also wouldn't ask me, accusatorily, why I don't have an accent. I do, however, appreciate my small town roots.