Texas Historical Marker #11871
Roy Bedichek. (June 27, 1878 - May 21, 1959) Born in Illinois to J. M. and Lucretia (Craven) Bedichek, Roy came to Falls County at the age of six. Educated first in his parents' school at Blevins and later at the Bedichek's Eddy Literary and Scientific Institute, he graduated from the University of Texas in 1903. He and Lillian Greer were married in 1910; their children were Mary, Sarah, and Bachman. Bedichek was a reporter, editor, teacher, and homesteader before joining the staff of the University of Texas in 1917; he became the second director of the University Interscholastic League (UIL) in 1922. For twenty-six years he tailored league policies to the American ideal of education for every child. His use of educational competition as "a spur to industry and a whetstone of talent" has shaped the lives of the countless students who have participated in UIL academic, athletic, and musical contests. A lifelong outdoorsman and animal lover, Bedichek wrote "Adventures with a Texas Naturalist," which was published in 1947; his letters, evidence of his enthusiastic correspondence, were collected into two books. Bedichek is fondly remembered as a conversationalist, folklorist, and storyteller who related all experience to the natural world. "He had the most richly stored mind of any man I ever knew," said his friend J. Frank Dobie. (1998) #11871
?, Eddy, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #01628
First Baptist Church of Eddy. Organized as Sage Chapel in 1875,this congregation moved its one-room frame sanctuary two miles east to the new town of Eddy in 1882. The church building also servedas a schoolhouse for the community, and the local Methodist congregation shared the facility until new Baptist sanctuary was dedicated on April 28, 1912, after two previous structures were destroyed by fire. This church has grown with the city of Eddy and continues to serve the community. #1628
?, Eddy, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #12121
Flowers House. This was the home of local cotton gin operator Felix A. Flowers (1870-1950) and his wife Lucinda Mixson flowers (1875-1949), a local social and civic leader. The house was designed by Missouri-born Roy E. Lane (1884-1956), a prominent central Texas architect who designed many structures in Waco between 1907 and 1936. Completed in 1910, the house reflects craftsman influences evident in much of Lane's work and is a reminder of the economic prosperity that cotton brought to the area in the early 20th century. The house remained in the Flowers family until it was sold in 1957. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998 #12121
600 W. Third Street, Eddy, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #00436
Blevins Cemetery. Born in the Republic of Texas in 1838, Amanda Ruble Taylor moved to this are in 1855. This cemetery began with her burial on family land in 1875. Her widower, the Rev. Issac Taylor, deeded land for this cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1879. The numerous infant grave sites reveal the harsh realities of frontier life. Buried alongside veterans of conflicts from the Texas Revolution to World War II are farmers whose perseverance and faith in the land helped shape this area. The Blevins Cemetery Association, founded in 1958, restored this site in 1991. #436
?, Eddy, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #00435
Blevins Community and School. The community of Blevins began about 1860, when Texas Revolution veteran Thomas H. Barron and his family settled near Deer Creek. The Rev. Isaac Taylor operated a school for area children from the 1870s until 1885, when Blevins School opened. A public school district, formally organized in 1916, served students in a nine-square mile area until 1939. A post office operated from 1886 to 1904, and at its height the community boasted two general stores, two cotton gins, two churches, a blacksmith shop, and ice house. #435
?, Eddy, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #01386
Eddy Methodist Church. In 1868 a congregation of Methodist living in the Bell and Mclennan county region between Elm and Bull hide Creeks erected a simple sanctary at the site of a nearby cedar log toll bridge. The Rev. James Peeler, a Waco district Methodist Circuit preacher, served the Cedar Bridge Church congregation in 1873. The community of Eddy, known as Marvin when first settled about 1880, moved toward the railroad tracks extended through this area by the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad in1882. That year a building known as Sage Chapel was relocated from local rancher Charles Dunning's Land to Eddy for use by the Methodist and Baptist Congregation. Eddy Mothodest erected a new church building at this site in 1892. This sancturary, built in 1912 through the efforts of the Rev. S.B. Knowles, is a good example of an Akron plan Church. It features elaborate German-,ade stained glass windows, a stamped metal ceiling, and Prairie School style infuences sch as overhanging eaves with brackets, a hipped roof,and tower. Bruceville and Eddy Methodist Churches merged to form the Bruceville-Eddy United Methodist Churchin 1983. Renovation of the sanctuary in 1993 included placement of the Bruceville Church Bell in the Belfry. #1386
?, Eddy, TX, United States