This was our first ghost trip town. Incidently, this is my first page dedicated to a ghost town trip and it took me a while to decide the best way to code it. Unfortunately for you I'm a lazy coder so I've decided to go "blog-style". If you're interested enough to be here, hopefully you'll be kind enough to forgive me. Although, since most people aren't on dial-up anymore, perhaps excessive load time won't matter.
That is Donahoe (pronounced "Donna-hyu" or "Dunny-hoo" depending on who you ask) from above. Or, perhaps it once was. To say that Donahoe is a ghost of it's former self would be . . . inaccurate. As it turns out Donahoe is being tapped as a new agriculteral center. Brand new farmhouses with shiny fences, complete with hand scanners. Donahoe Rd, Donahoe Ln and Post Oak Rd were all there, but nothing as they were in the mapquest image. In fact, Post Oak Rd is currently being straightened and paved. Luckily today was Sunday and there was no construction work being done. I admit, I became more crestfallen as we drove up and down these roads, but it turns out that Post Oak Rd. is where we hit paydirt. Eventually.
This fenceless gate and water tank (feeder?) were the first interesting things we came across. I took pictures of them figuring they would be the most I would get. Thankfully, I was very wrong. At the end of Post Oak Rd. we found an old abandoned house. Hallelujah! It certainly wasn't 1800s old, but it was enough to keep the trip from being a total bust.
Here is a closer look at the shed. I'm not sure if you can see, but there are three shell shapes to the right of the door.
And a view of the house from the shed.
There is what appears to be perhaps a stable of some kind.
Let's get a closer look, shall we? On our way to the stables I passed, for me, the creepiest part of the house. I'm not sure if it was a storm cellar, or potato cellar, or what it was, but it was so small, and notice the set of down-turned vents up top.
Perhaps it was that someone took the time to paint the inside blue? The only thing in here is the one wooden bench. If this is a storm cellar then this sad little bench becomes sadder when we see what is inside the house . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Onward. The further building definitely appears to be a horse stable.
And these doors to the closer structure appear to have once been barn-like.
With a view of the house (or of the structure from the house).
And your token animal bones.
I don't know much about farming, but this part of the structure intrigued me the most. It was a little raised-up square of a room.
And it appears someone jammed the lock . . .
Even though you notice this door has no lock, or even a knob. There is possibly a work table in there. I don't know if the empty jars have anything to do with whatever work was done in here or not. Also, whatever steps may have been here, no longer were.
We passed this on our way back towards the house.
And here is the view from the back.
Peeking through the window. Anybody home? Apparently not.
I didn't notice any steps or cieling panels which would lead to this attic space. Perhaps they used a ladder to get that box of beer up there.
These are the beds that could be seen from that window. So far, it seems, two people to fit in the bunker.
This is the 2nd room coming in from the back. I guess this would be the door person would come to if they were coming from the stable area, so perhaps those faucets have something to do with that? I held the camera up as high as I could for this shot because the room was very small.
The next room going straight was a poorly lit bathroom. Filthy bathroom. I backtrack to the faucet room and push through a door which would be behind me from the previous picture. Here we find ourselves in the kitchen area.
From where I am standing there is another bedroom to my right. With two more beds. Understand why that little "storm shelter" would be a depressing prospect?
To the right (from the picture perspective) was the living room. It was cluttered with couches and a grill. The one thing that caught my eye was what I believe is a hand-made "God's Eye". Of all the things left in this house, that one struck me the most. It was situated prominently above the fireplace, where most people keep their family portraits. Why was this here? Why was it left? Of all things taken, why not this?
Then around to the front of the house. To be honest, one reason Aaron ventured close with me to begin with was this simple porch swing. Behind the tree branches, hanging there. This up-close picture doesn't quite capture the creepy feel of glimpsing it from the street.
On our way back to the car he spotted this almost-rectangle of rocks in the dirt. Possibly a former flower garden?
So then what of those landmarks mentioned on that site? Well, we found the windmill . . .
And the cemetry, even though we could not get to it at this time. You can see it if you squint at the top-left corner of that mapquest image, but the area is much overgrown now. And there were cows. Meaning that someone is definitely there at some point. But thank you Texas Law for looking out for us on this one. We will definitely be back.
Sort of diagonally across from the cemetery was this derelict structure.
Complete with two giant birds sitting on the roof.
It wasn't until we were on our way back that we finally came across the lonely grave of Sarah Herndon. We did not locate the historical marker that is supposed to be nearby *grumbles* but I'm glad we found this. In this instance we overlooked the creed of "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" and left a flower for her. Not much, just a little blue one we had on the rearview mirror, but it felt like the right thing to do.
And here is the path to river that took her life.
More animal bones along the way.
It doesn't look like much, but we haven't had much rain. Also, they may have dammed it further up.
The little pink chair was a creepy touch. There was some grafitti on the bridge, but I cropped that out because it just made me too sad and angry.
So that is Donahoe. If you've come this far with me, perhaps you'd be interested in reading about the rest of our day. Or not. Thank you for coming on this adventure with me. Hopefully there will be many more to come.
