Airplanes, outstanding heroes, and peaches in North Texas – these are the intriguing discoveries we made recently. We were not familiar with this part of Texas but spent some time here while visiting my brother while he was sick.
We had the opportunity to see some unique sights in Greenville and Terrell. Each of these was within about 30 minutes from our home base at Stinson RV Park and Resort.
Stinson RV Park and Resort
3641 East I-30
Campbell, TX 75422
This R.V. park was ideally located for us, had great level pull-through spots, full hook-ups, a dog park, all at a great nightly rate. The Tin Cup Tavern Bar & Grill and the stocked (catch and release) fishing pond were within walking distance from our R.V. Also; a nine-hole golf course is across the fence!
Greenville, Texas
The Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum
600 I-30 East
Greenville, TX 75401
American Cotton Museum
The purpose of the Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum is to preserve Hunt County history. This Museum has very artistically created separate exhibits within the one Museum, each depicting the various stages of the county’s history.
Displayed on one side of the Museum is the cotton industry’s importance and a significant impact on Hunt County. One exhibit consists of a narrated 1920s Main street replica: a drugstore, hardware store, ladies hat store, clothing store, and beauty shop. Very cool display!
The engine of the world’s largest inland cotton compress is on display here. It would compress cotton bales from the field down to 8-10 inches thick. This early 1900s machine could compress over 2,000 bales of cotton in a single day, thus maximizing shipping.
Audie Murphy
Everyone knows who Audie Murphy is, right? He was WWII’s most decorated soldier. Murphy earned almost every medal possible, and that was before reaching the age of 21! He received the Medal of Honor when he was just 19 for his heroic efforts in repelling a German attack.
After Audie Murphy’s military service ended, he became a nationally acclaimed country music songwriter and a major motion picture star. He starred in 44 films, one of which was To Hell and Back, a fictionalized story of his military service.
Audie Murphy, killed in 1971 in a plane crash, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His gravesite is the second most popular at Arlington Cemetery, second only to John F. Kennedy’s grave.
Hall of Heroes
The Museum’s Hall of Heroes honors local heroes and contains life-sized and narrated exhibits of a WWI trench and a life-sized presentation of wife and child helping the war effort back home.
Hunt County War Memorial
As you enter the Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum, you will see a ten-foot statue of Audie Murphy standing with his gun at the ready. This statue honors all the Hunt County soldiers killed in military conflicts in the 20th Century.
The Ende-Gillard House, built 1857-1859 on the Museum property, is the oldest standing house in Greenville.
Terrell, TX
This small community, population 16,000 or so, is almost a suburb of Dallas, a mere 25 miles away. Terrell began as a depot stop on the Texas and Pacific Railroad Company. We drove over from Stinson RV Park for an afternoon and visited two fun and unique sights in Terrell.
Ham Orchards
Ham Orchards is THE place in North Texas to get great fresh peaches, anything peach for that matter. They have been selling peaches since the early 80s, first from a roadside stand and now from a sizeable enclosed produce market, complete with a walk-up window barbeque restaurant and dining pavilion.
This fabulous peach organization got even better in 2000 when it began selling its homemade peach and strawberry ice cream. More features added in the 2000s include a fudge bar, and an outdoor dining pavilion.
Small batch ice cream made fresh each morning!
The orchard’s peach season is from May to mid-August. Our visit was the day before the end of the season which made this a bustling Saturday afternoon. We did not purchase peaches, but the ice cream was over the top delicious. We did take home a few jars of canned peach products also.
Ham Orchards is a complete one-stop family day trip. After (or before) you’ve made all your peach, ice cream, and fudge purchases, take a few steps over to the walk-up window for some of Eddie Dean’s famous barbeque. Delicious barbeque lunches!
Today Ham Orchards has over 10,000 peach trees and various other fruit trees, covering over five acres. This day trip was a terrific experience, and we had a great time sitting in the pavilion rocking chairs, watching the young families out for the day enjoying the orchard.
Ham Orchards is seasonal, of course, so it is only open May-August. Check their website for exact open days. Very much worth a visit!
Texas No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum
Well, this is a genuinely fantastic piece of history in Terrell, Texas! Did you have any idea there was a World War II British Flight Training School operating in Terrell, Texas, in 1941? I certainly did not.
A Lend-Lease Agreement with Britain is how the No. 1 British Flying Training School came into existence. Before the U.S. entered WWII, this Lend-Lease Agreement allowed the U.S. to remain neutral in Great Britain’s fight against Germany but enabled it to lend or lease war supplies to them.
The Museum in Terrell houses an extensive record archive of this flying school, honoring this mostly unknown but unique Texas history related to World War II. Exhibits display many personal stories of British cadets’ lives at the school in Terrell as British cadets.
Under this policy, the U.S. was able to train thousands of British recruits to fly. Six of these civilian training schools were created in the U.S. The first and most significant was in Terrell, where over 2,000 cadets earned their wings to become pilots between 1941 – 1945.
Unfortunately, some casualties occurred during the training classes. A small portion of the historic Oakland Cemetery in Terrell is dedicated to the graves of those British cadets. Quite a sobering site.
Airplanes, outstanding heroes, and peaches in North Texas
Airplanes, heroes, and peaches in North Texas – we had no idea there were such fun and unique sights to see and history to learn about in these small North Texas towns. We always enjoy these nuggets of history and information as you can see from my most recent posts about small-town history and sights in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Hams has the ABSOLUTE BEST peaches! One of my sisters lives about an hour away from there and brings me peaches every year. I eat as many as I can, share a few (a very few) and freeze some. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their peaches…would like to go there sometime and try the ice cream!
It IS the best! We were traveling and didn’t buy any peaches because we had nowhere to store them, although I could have eaten a dozen! The barbeque was very good, but the ice cream was amazing. I have to admit that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we got way too much ice cream. Enjoyed every bite though.