Pontotoc, Texas

I write stories about rural America and small towns most of the time.  Maybe that comes from my background as a teacher.  One of my favorite courses to teach was a rural sociology course, and I usually turned it into a discussion class with quite a few field trips.  I'd load students into a school van, and we'd head for the boonies to take a look at a one room school, or a feedlot, or a dairy, or perhaps even a ranch.  I wanted kids to understand that there's more to living in this country than city living, and I did that with some purpose in mind.

We've got over 300 million people living in the U.S., and most of them live in cities.  In fact, something like 90 percent of our population lives in less than 10 percent of our land area, and that leaves lots of empty spaces out there that have become neglected areas.  I could go on and on about this neglect, but that's not what this blog is about.  My point is that we should not overlook rural areas because this is still the heart of America.  Perhpas it's true that the brains of the country live in cities, but if the heart stops pumping, the brain dies.  It's a simple as that.  When small towns die, we lose something important.

I live in a town of about 5,500 people, but that's not at issue here.  Out in the countryside here in the hill country of central Texas, we have lots of small burgs - tiny villages, just wide spots in the road.  It's easy to miss them, even easier to ignore them, but we shouldn't lose sight of them.  My friends Alphonse and Martha Dotson are in the grape business.  They own and operate a vineyard in Voca, Texas, and that's about 13 miles from where I live.  Voca is one of those tiny towns, but it's perfect for a vineyard.  Down the road, that would be highway 71, there's another tiny village called Pontotoc, and something remarkable is happening there.  I don't know the exact population of Pontotoc, but I'd be surprised if more than 100 people live there.  At one time, and that would be a long time ago, there was a school there, built by the man who first settled the place.  All that remains of that school are some stone walls, and there's not much to the business section of town.  There's a small Thrift Shop, and then there's what once was downtown Pontotoc.  It's just one building - a long rectangular building divided into four or five sections. 

At one time this little village had a post office, a theater, and several businesses.  But that was quite a while back, and the building has been shut and vacant . . . until recently.  Then a man with some vision for Pontotoc showed up and bought property, including the building that once housed the few businesses in town.  He bought a historic old house and restored it, and he set about creating a vineyard and winery.  The old business district is being restored.  It already has the winery up and running, there's a tasting room, and the theater is being refurbished.  And, my friends Alphonse and Martha Dotson will have a home there for their wine products.  In short, the smal downtown area of Pontotoc is coming alive again, and that's good for everyone.

I'll write more later about Pontotoc and the people behind the restorations there.  And I posted some pics to show what's going on.