Things to Do in Granbury, Texas

You have to wonder what a Mississippi-born Civil War general schooled in the majesty of the law would think about a bunch of Texans racing outhouses around the courthouse square of the town named in his honor, but that's the way it turned out.

The Outrageous Outhouse Race is no marathon, but you might want to visit Granbury some mid-March for the annual birthday party for Brig. Gen. H.B. Granbury, the town's namesake. The Outhouse Race is one of numerous events connected to the yearly bash staged in honor of the general.

When the late unpleasantness between the North and South broke out in 1861, Granbury organized a military unit in Waco, where he had his law practice. Granbury rose from captain to brigadier general before dying on Nov. 30, 1864 in the Battle of Franklin.

"Forward men," he is said to have yelled moments before a bullet caught him. "Never let it be said that Texans lagged in the fight!"

Granbury never lived in Granbury, but he's occupied real estate there since 1893, when Dr. J.N. Doyle led a delegation of Confederate veterans to Columbia, Tenn., exhumed the general and brought him back to "his" town for burial in the cemetery just north of the square.

"The General's uniform and army blanket in which he was buried were in a tolerably fair state of preservation," Granbury veteran J.H. Doyle (the doctor's brother) reported in Confederate Veteran Magazine. "The remains were reinterred here Nov. 30, 1893, just twenty-nine years after he sacrificed his life for the land he loved."

That sober occasion, Doyle continued, drew more visitors to town "than ever before."

Now, more than 11 decades later, the general still attracts visitors to this lakeside community in North Texas, especially for events like the annual party celebrating his March 1, 1831 birthday. Even on normal weekends, Granbury's courthouse square is usually packed with visitors browsing some 40 antique and gift shops, in town for a show at the Granbury Live theater or just to eat a good meal in a small town only 39 miles from Fort Worth.

Incidentally, Gen. Granbury's not the only notable buried in the vicinity. If you want to take a break from the hoop-la attendant to the general's birthday, drive 6 miles to Acton to visit the grave of Elizabeth Patton Crockett, Davy's widow.

She and two of her children came to Hood County in 1853 to claim land given by Texas to those who participated in the fight against Mexico, or their heirs. The Crocketts had 640 acres, where Mrs. Crockett died in 1860 after taking her regular morning walk.

In 1911, the Legislature appropriated $2,000 to place a 28-foot gray granite monument over her grave. Her two children lie beside her in what is the smallest state park in Texas, just 12 by 21 feet.