The Buggy Barn Museum in Blanco is the rest home for several Hollywood character actors, but that’s not the reason you should visit. The only way this timeline of horse-drawn transportation could be more complete is if the horses were there to pet and ogle, too.
Attached to the shafts of one of the carriages is a curtain of rawhide thongs used to keep flies off the horses. When you consider all the difficulties in travel of the era, it’s tough to get too nostalgic for a time before the combustion engine became our beast of burden.
The big wheels, graceful curves, and pleated seats shaped by old-world craftsmen are a work of art. Along with the shiny carriages appearing in the movies Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Lonesome Dove are the foot warmers and rain curtains that were part of the reality of driving a buggy.
It’s interesting to see the early works of Studebaker and Fisher Body, but it’s good that the companies went on to develop a more comfortable mode of travel. Looking at the prairie schooner and thinking of the mountainous West, the question comes to mind: How did they do it?
The Buggy Barn Museum is on the north side of Blanco at 1915 U.S. 281. Open Monday through Saturday, the barn contains more than 100 carriages from the 1800s to early 1900s parked axle to axle. For more information, call 830/833-5708 or go to www.buggybarnmuseum.com.
1,214th in a series. Collect them all. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of “Day Trips,” is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
This article appears in Dan Patrick.
