A Historical Small Town in Texas: Where Sam Houston Lived

A Great Place to Visit: Nacodoches, Texas

Continuing on our 17 day RV trip around America, we found ourselves in East Texas and going south from where we entered the state at Texarkana along US 59 and through several small towns, including Jefferson and Marshall.

We had started off early so we were in Nacogdoches for lunchtime and wanted to find something special and a local restaurant in the town center.  It was fairly easy to find a spot to park the RV as there are various parking lots behind some of the buildings in the historic center.

While we have plenty of brick streets in St. Petersburg, where we live, the brick streets of Nacogdoches were slightly different and the town seems to pride itself on the brick streets though we’ve seen them in other small East Texas towns.

The town’s historic core is relatively small for a town of over 30,000 people but there is a visitor’s center centrally located with friendly staff who were very helpful and can direct you in any direction in the town and are informative about the town’s history as well.  There were plenty of visitors on the day we came through.  And it is well worth making a trip to see.  It is very historic by Texas standards and, unlike towns of similar age in the east, it has amazingly wide streets with very little congestion.

Lunch

It is possible to spend a good afternoon walking around and prowling some shops and historic buildings.  We opted to eat at the Olde Town General Store & Diner which is on the main street in the town.  It was pretty busy and it is easy to see why.  This little place alone is worth a trip to Nacogdoches.  I had the most incredible stuffed potato here and the staff genuinely seemed fun and friendly.

You could tell by sitting here that there is a love of this town by visitors and by the residents.  It is part of the Texas Main Street program and the banners and flowers and well kept shops were an indication of this as were the tourists who were strolling its nice streets.  It wasn’t until we reached the end of the town center that we found a thrift store and an unrestored cinema and those were even refreshing.

I was curious as to what people did for a living here so I checked and Pilgrim’s Pride is the second largest employer behind a government funded university.  So apparently there is a lot of chicken processing in the area.  And it doesn’t hurt that it is the seat of local government, a key to any town along our route being able to survive and even thrive.

But my thought on this town is it is well worth visiting and you can easily spend more than an afternoon here.  But whatever you do, don’t miss a stuffed baked potato at the Olde Towne General Store.  And if you’re looking for an overnight in the area, there are plenty of accommodations but we opted to head south to Lake Livingston where we spent the night in our RV which will be our next post.

Keep traveling!