Bead-Allanreed Large White Wood TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.

Alanreed is in southern Gray County.  In the early 1880s a group of farmers clearing timber from the basin of McClellan Creek selected the site, which was on the stage line from Mobeetie to Clarendon.  By 1884 the Clarendon Land and Cattle Company began selling townsite lots.  In 1886 a post office called Eldridge was established six miles north of the present site of Alanreed.  At various times the town was also called Springtown or Spring Tank (for a large spring-fed tank), Prairie Dog Town (for one located nearby) and Gouge Eye (for a saloon fight).  The present townsite was laid out in 1900 by a surveyor for the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Texas Railroad. The town's present name was reputedly derived from the name of the contracting firm, Alan and Reed.

In 1901 the first school was built. In 1902 the post office was moved from Eldridge and renamed Alanreed. After the Rock Island line was completed in 1903 the town became a shipping point for cattle. By 1904 Alanreed was the largest town in in the county. In 1907 it had a bank, a hotel, a depot, Baptist and Methodist churches, a saloon, two grocery stores, a hardware store, a livery stable, and a blacksmith shop. Watermelons became a major crop; the town shipped an average of 500 cars annually. By 1917 the town had an estimated population of 250.

Although the population was estimated at 500 in 1927, by 1929 both the hotel and the bank had closed. In 1930 the Alanreed school was consolidated with three other area schools. In 1933 the number of residents was estimated at 150.  In 1977 the population was estimated at sixty. 

The town was on the old Route 66.  The glory days are over for this Mother Road Town; the Interstate brought those days to an end.  However, there is a nicely restored gas station though thanks to the efforts of the Historic Route 66 Association of Texas.