Preserving the Past
Glen Flora group opposes TTC, saying the super-highway would result in destruction of area's historical landmarks
By BARRY HALVORSON bhalvorson@journal-spectator.com

Staff photo by Barry Halvorson Looking to promote the history of Glen Flora in an effort to divert the TTC route around the rural community, Janet Hobizal answers questions from Channel 11 reporter Rucks Russell while Kirk Swann catches the conversation on tape for broadcast.

GLEN FLORA - While area residents have been doing their own thing in regard to this small community's history, the looming threat of the Trans-Texas Corridor moving through the area has inspired more of a groupthink to preserve the past.

The group that has emerged from the combining of efforts is called the Glen Flora-Spanish Camp Historical Society.

Tuesday, group members Janet Hobizal and Garland Berry were interviewed by KHOU Channel 11 reporter Rucks Russell.

In discussing the organization's efforts, President Duncan Corbett said the group isn't as opposed to the superhighway project as much as it is against destroying history to accomplish it.

"Everyone is this area knows about the history but there wasn't any threat so they were working on their own projects," he said.

"We're not anti-TTC as much as prohistorical. We didn't formalize things before because there wasn't a threat like we have now."

The archivist at the Wharton County Historical Museum, Hobizal said she's been documenting various cemeteries in the area for the past two years.

She said several are from Black communities and contain graves of former slaves.

"We're trying to document the information so we can use it in our arguments," she said.

"We've identified at least six families within a 10-mile radius (of downtown Glen Flora) who have owned and been farming the same land for at least 100 years. And we've documented nine cemeteries with more still left that we can't get into because of the weather. There are more than 30 historical markers in the county."

Based on the preliminary preferred route unveiled for the project's environmental study, the new roadway would plow through the area, burying history under a roadway, Hobizal said.

With deep family roots in the Glen Flora-Spanish Camp area, society volunteer Garland Berry is helping with the effort.

He said it was inevitable the various historical projects would overlap but the corridor threat made it happen sooner than later.

"The genesis of this has been building for a long time in this area," he said. "There is so much history here and so many different people with individual projects they were working on, we would have eventually started working together."

In discussing his own history, Berry said his great-grandfather was the first landowner in the family after being deeded a large tract of land to cultivate after being freed from slavery.

"Grandfather worked on the Newel Plantation," he said.

"He was given the land by the owners

after emancipation, for all of the service he'd provided to the family while a slave."

He added he has always been interested in his family's history but until recently couldn't find the time to do a proper study.

"I think the reason you find so much written about the Anglo community is that those families were able to build up wealth and every so often one of them could just make a career about researching and writing about their past," he said.

"With African-Americans in this area, it was a matter of needing to build up that wealth. First we were behind in education and didn't have the leisure time, and then once we started getting the education we worked on building careers.

"Eventually I would like to see my children or grandchildren have the wealth that would allow them the opportunity to document our history."

Another volunteer with the group is Peggy Todd, a volunteer firfi.ghter with the Glen Flora Volunteer Fire Department.

"I've always been interested in history but the people I hung out with weren't," she said.

"And then I met Janet. I grew up listening to all the stories from this area but I think I've learned more actual history in the few weeks since I started volunteering than I did my entire life growing up here."