Day Trips
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., Oct. 10, 2003
Post, Texas, hangs on the edge of the Caprock where the American plains drop into the rolling hills of Central Texas. It was to this inhospitable land that the inventor of Post Toasties cereal came to create a utopian community and one of the most unusual chapters in Texas history. From its pedestal in front of the Garza County Courthouse, the bronze statue of C.W. Post looks down Main Street of the town he carved from the dusty plains.
Nearly 100 years after the cereal magnate marked his boundaries, the country town of 3,400 quietly continues Post's dream. The red brick buildings of the business district maintain a postcard appearance. Despite its remoteness, or maybe because of it, Post thrives on the highway halfway between Snyder and Lubbock as an outpost for the surrounding ranches and oil fields.
The journey for the boy from Springfield, Ill., to West Texas is an American success story. Post was born in 1854 and witnessed the Civil War and Lincoln's funeral train. As a teenager, he and a friend worked as cowboys in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.
After he was married at 20, Post settled into life as a farming-equipment salesman, but soon realized that he could make more money in manufacturing. He received seven patents for his Post Capitol City Cultivators company. He also worked on improving the player piano and built a bicycle with two wheels the same size instead of one large wheel and one small wheel.
Because of illness and a banker's shady dealings, Post lost the implement company to a mortgage company. Doctors recommended a drier climate, and he headed to Fort Worth, where he dove into real estate development. He was working on a mill to turn cottonseed hulls into paper when he fell ill with a devastating nervous breakdown.
His trip to Battle Creek, Mich., and meeting Dr. John Harvey Kellogg changed his life and breakfast. Post believed that a large part of his health problems were due to his coffee consumption. In Texas, he had discovered how the farmers' wives would make a coffee substitute using chicory, roasted wheat, and other grains. While the Kellogg brothers were perfecting their corn flakes, Post developed Postum Food Coffee using wheat, bran, and molasses.
Post knew that it wasn't enough to have a great product, and he became the largest single advertiser in the country. In 1897, he introduced Grape-Nuts cereal, and seven years later he mimicked the Kelloggs product (introduced in 1898) and put Post Toasties on the breakfast table.
With his cereal fortune, Post turned his considerable energies toward Texas and his idea of building a perfect town. In 1906, he purchased 333 square miles of Garza County, a place with more rattlesnakes than people. The idea was to give settlers a fresh start with their own farm plots at low monthly payments.
Until his death in Santa Barbara, Calif., Post was involved in nearly every detail of the town's progress. He wrote checks for libraries, schools, and public buildings. Every one of the trees lining the streets probably owes its lineage to saplings hauled from the railroad depot 80 miles south in Big Spring. The Algerita Hotel, where Post ordered that Postum coffee and Grape-Nuts be served at every meal in the dining room, has been converted into an art center.
Experimenting in socialized medicine, Post Sanitarium was once the best medical facility in West Texas and the only nurses' training center west of St. Louis until World War I. It is now the Garza County Museum, with exhibits detailing Post's efforts until he died in 1914.
The Postex Cotton Mill on the southern edge of town not only processed raw cotton but also turned out Garza Sheets, renowned for their softness. The giant building is now home to the Old Mill Trade Days on the first weekend of the month when antique dealers from around the country converge on the town.
The best place to spend the night in town is the 85-year-old western inn converted into the Hotel Garza Historic Bed and Breakfast. At the end of Main Street, the simple elegance and outdoor gardens accentuate the small-town ambience.
644th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of Day Trips 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.