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City Spotlight: Gatesville
Home of the world’s largest collection of cowboy spurs.
Gatesville is a small town in Central Texas, just west of Waco. It was actually named after a preexisting fort called Fort Gates, a stronghold of the early frontier days. Over the years, Gatesville’s culture has been defined by a little bit farm life, a little bit Army life, and a whole lot of country life.
Legends Around Gatesville
As the county seat of Coryell County, Gatesville is home to one of the most beautiful courthouses in Texas. It was built at the tail end of the 19th century and has these incredible red sandstone pillars and domes. But for all the material beauty on the outside, there’s some otherworldly eeriness inside. Pretty much every employee who’s worked in the Coryell County Courthouse has stories of hearing disembodied voices or getting tapped on the shoulder by invisible fingers — yep, it’s another haunted building in Texas. The local legend traces the ghost (who’s named “Elroy”) back to a gruesome crime in one of the courtrooms back in 1909. It’s a grisly story that Gatesville locals (or maybe Elroy himself) can tell you in detail.
Gatesville is also the official Spur Capital of Texas, a title you can bear witness to at the Coryell Museum and Historical Center, just a block away from the courthouse. Lloyd Mitchell, a local football coach, spent 77 years amassing more than 10,000 cowboy spurs. After his passing in 1991, his family left the enormous collection (the world’s largest) to the museum. It’s a sight to behold, and not just because of the sheer quantity — there’s a pair of Pancho Villa’s, some of Jackie Kennedy’s, and a bunch of other names that Western aficionados will recognize.
Eatsville
The thing about Gatesville that will really stand out on your trip will be the food. For lunch, you’ve got to go to Carlus’ Park Street Burgers. If you looked up the definition of a drive-in cheeseburger in a dictionary, it would show you a picture of Park Street Burgers. Which is to say, it’s a little building where you get a paper-wrapped burger with pickles, onion, and tomato handed to you through a window and eat in your truck. It might not sound special, but it’s one of my favorite burgers I’ve ever had on the road. Try it, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
The other place you must try is The Feed Mill. The building used to be the old mill that fed the local cows, but now it’s a restaurant for local people to eat cows: They make really phenomenal chicken-fried steak. Walking around The Feed Mill is just as fun as eating food, because it’s almost like a little museum of random Texas memorabilia. The walls are covered with antique farm equipment, and there’s a door from the set of the “Lonesome Dove” miniseries. You’ll also find the old scoreboard from the Gatesville football field, odd knickknacks, and all kinds of other interesting stuff. It’s fun to play I Spy while you’re chowing down.
If you need an afternoon pick-me-up, go to Rissy’s Slappin’ Sips and Bangin’ Bites, a food truck that serves some incredible flavored lemonade. You can get it with everything from dill pickle to hibiscus. It’s a nice way to cool off before hitting the outdoors.
Outdoor Gatesville
The ghosts and spurs make Gatesville unique as it is, but there are a couple of other sights that really make this little town special. One is a world-class off-road racetrack that was designed by people who’ve worked on Formula 1 tracks. It’s called Dove Nest Motorsports Club, and it was started by an emergency room doctor who apparently got bored of being a doctor and invested all his money into building a racecar culture in Gatesville. Right now, the whole track is dirt (he’s planning to pave it someday), but you can take your ATV out on it and do some awesome racing with hairpin turns and even a jump.
Wind down the day with something less extreme, but still death-defying in its own way: one of the last surviving drive-in movie theaters in Texas. It’s literally called The Last Drive-In Picture Show, and it’s the whole classic experience, including popcorn, candy, lawn chairs in the bed of your pickup truck, and a giant outdoor movie screen. These folks are so dedicated to the old-school theater experience that the films are rolling even when it rains.
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