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Collegeport's Mopac
House Has Opening
CAUSEWAY FROM PALACIOS
IS TOPIC OF DISCUSSION BY MANY SPEAKERS
The heart of Harry Austin Clapp of
Collegeport was made glad last Saturday afternoon when Mopac House was
dedicated and opened. Over 100 guests from Collegeport and the
surrounding district were present at
1 o'clock
to partake of the banquet which was served by the Collegeport ladies.
These good women know how to serve a banquet. They have done it often
before, and it is needless to say that the appointments were in
excellent taste.
There were many visitors from
Bay City
and the surrounding towns. Those present from Palacios were Mr. and Mrs.
J. F. Barnett, Carlton Crawford, John Fox, G. A. Harrison, daughter Miss
Marian, Dr. and Mrs. J. R. Wagner, Rev. G. F. Gillespie, E. A. J. Seddon,
Dr. John Fewkes and Mrs. J. W. Dismukes.
Rev. Paul Engle of
Bay City
gave the invocation and dedication prayer. Mr. Harry Austin Clapp took
the Chair and read apologies for absence. Mr. E. Taulbee was
Toastmaster. The building was at one time the Missouri Pacific depot at
Collegeport. When the Railroad ceased to operate the depot was donated
by the Missouri Pacific Railroad for a community house. The idea of
moving it and using it as a community center originated with Mr. Harry
Austin Clapp. He it was who asked for the building from the Railroad
Company. He it was who worked unceasingly through all the months to have
it moved beside the High School. It is now a handsome and commodious
building consisting of a banquet room with concrete floor suitable for
public meetings and dances; a library; and a kitchen--waiting only for
paint which has already been donated. Part of the labor was donated by
the Relief Administration largely through the good offices of Mr. George
Harrison,
County
Commissioner
, to whom Mr. Clapp gave much praise for the untiring interest he
showed. The address of welcome was given by Mr. Burton D. Hurd. The
toastmaster called on Mr. A. B. Duke, representative of Mr. H. R.
Safford of the Missouri Pacific railroad. Mr. Duke told us that Mr.
Safford was very glad to donate the building and expressed pleasure on
behalf of the Railroad Company that the building had been named Mopac.
Mr. George Harrison then addressed the meeting and expressed his
gratitude to the people of Collegeport for their support throughout the
years and his delight that he had been in a position to help in this
community effort. He looked forward to the time when there would be a
Causeway joining Collegeport and Palacios, thus bringing the two towns
close together, and expressed his determination to work wholeheartedly
for it. Mr. Ed Baker,
County
Commissioner
from the town of
Matagorda
, also looked forward to the time when this link in the Hug-the-Coast
road from Palacios to
Orange
would be completed via Collegeport, Matagorda and
Freeport
. He too would be glad to devote all his efforts to the consummation of
this project. Mr. A. D. Jackson of
A. & M.
College
addressed the meeting, spoke in high praise of the possibilities of the
district, and looked forward to the time when Collegeport would be the
center of a thriving agricultural section. Addresses were also made by
Judge Barber, Jim Gartrell and Eugene Wilson of
Bay City
; S. A. Gallimore of
Victoria
; and J. F. Barnett and George F. Gillespie of Palacios.
Mrs. Burton D. Hurd and Mrs. Harry
Austin Clapp spoke on behalf of the ladies of Collegeport, and were no
whit behind the men in their ability and fluency as speakers. Last of
all, Harry Austin Clapp, addressed the meeting. He was received by the
audience standing as a mark of appreciation. He read letters of apology
from those who were unable to be present. In giving an account of the
initiation and carrying to completion of the Community House he called
himself a visionary. Communities like Collegeport and Palacios need
visionaries like Harry Austin Clapp, men who possess not only vision but
also energy and enterprise to make their vision real. "Where there
is no vision the people perish," and the result of one man's vision
was seen on Saturday in the Mopac Community House.
Mr. Clapp himself would not wish to take
all or much of the credit, and so he expressed in glowing terms his
gratitude to all who had helped. They visitors from Palacios came away
glad that one more link had been forged in the friendship between the
two towns, and looking forward to the time when the Causeway would
reduce the distance between the two towns from 32.6 miles to 3 miles.
Reporter
The Palacios Beacon, May, 1935,
Harry Austin Scrapbook 3
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