A day in Paris... Texas that is!

Oct 18, 2017

6 min read

It was like every other Friday night, Marla was getting ready to go with The Farm Bureau Man to OSU homecoming the next morning and Lisa and I were both at HS Football games watching our kids... We had planned on staying home Saturday to watch The Red River Rivalry instead of making the treck this year.... the phone rang and last minute plans were changed and BOOM... It was on.. like Chaka Khan ! Hey, thats how we roll!

We decided that Lisa had not been to Paris sooo we felt obligated to take her there... so off we went. We met Marla at one of our go to places... the Arbuckle Fried Pies place outside of Davis Oklahoma. So yummy... a little girl from Walters whose sister Hassie is a good friend of ours, the little peach🍑...well her sister Hannah is getting married and Max, her boyfriend works there. Sooo head on down to the fried pie place and tell'em The Three Broke Teachers sent you and tell Max hi. He will have no idea who we are... but say it anyway...haha

We stuffed our faces...Lori had lemon, Lisa had Peach, and Marla had pecan pie... heavenly!

We rolled into Paris...Texas that is and knew we only had a limited amount of time before things began to close, it was Saturday after all. Marla and I, feeling like experts, told Lisa about this and that but we also knew time wasn't on our side since it was now about 12:30. We decided to go to an antique show that we learned about at the old Hotel.

The show was great, but holy cow the inside of the building blew our minds, it was so lovely and it made our imagination run wild with what wonderful things would have happened here! We learned that you can now rent the hotel for weddings and other events... what an amazing venue to have.

This was the old elevator that was actually used at the hotel. I wanted to take it home with me.

The floor was spectacular!

We shopped for a bit and high tailed it out of there to our next stop! We headed to downtown Paris... Texas that is!

We just love downtown Paris Texas! It's like going back in time... walking down the sidewalks, window shopping, and listening to "My momma told me, You better shop around" playing over the speakers... little boutiques, antique stores on every corner and of course just the architecture alone is spectacular! I can't believe we didn't get a pic of the middle of the square with the water fountains... they are beautiful and you just have to see them and read the history of the town and about the great fire of 1916. It will draw you in and if you are like us, you will be googling people and places and about the fire all the way home.

We popped into a little boutique on the corner of the square called belle vie and to our surprise, we met a fellow Oklahoman... she noticed Marla's OSU shirt and made conversation about how her husband was an alumni, but still made it clear she was a Sooner girl. This gal was from Marlow, Oklahoma... right down the road from Lori in Lindsay! What a small world!!

Aren't they cute!!! That's an Oklahoma girl living in Paris Texas...

We then went into an antique store and well... we just had some fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf1tWa2koXs

When your walking through the store and you find the source of the song playing, and it's your jam no less...well you turn it up!!! OH my, I couldn't help but laugh... but it did not surprise anyone... except for those in the store watching this fiasco! Fun times in the antique store!!! Then when a country song comes on, well we had to prove we can two step just as well as anyone in Texas... Oklahoma's got swag too ya know...Besides, OU and Texas were playing at that very moment, so we had some proving to do!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amvW_c0l-d8

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After a bit of shopping in the square we decided it was time to eat a bite. The last time we were here a friend we met in town named Lisa suggested we go to Jaxx Burgers, so we decided we should try it out!! So glad we did, they were good burgers, we had loaded fries and buttered buttons (fried mushrooms).

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Our bellies were full and it was starting to get late and we definitely wanted to go to the Paris Museum that we missed the last time we were in town, but We also wanted to go to the Sam Bell Maxey house also... so we decided to hit the museum real quick. We thought it probably wouldn't be much and then we could haul our hind parts over to the Maxey house and go through it real fast... WELL... we were wrong!! What a treasure!!! We arrived before it closed, and the older gentlemen who ran the museum was such a sweetheart and so warm and welcoming. We made our way through this amazing building that just kept going on and on full of such rich HISTORY!! Folks, you just gotta go here to see all the treasures that were preserved from this interesting town and community that has been through some really hard times and even managed to keep it true to its heritage. It's located right by the old depot down by the Coca Cola Factory...

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We even got to see Samuel Bell Maxey and his family and read the history of this famous Texas Confederate General and even learned the history of other famous families of Paris. We absolutely loved it and will return again someday to look more, we were overwhelmed with joy. There was so much that we know we missed. It was such a great find!!! We then realized it was to late to go to the Maxey house and tour it, but that's okay... That just gives us another reason to return someday. We of course had to show Lisa where the house was and she loved it just as much as we did. We drove her around to see all the beautiful historical homes that decorates this amazing town.

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We were beyond excited when driving down 6th street we came across this unbelievable home that was sitting back off from the road, we were blown away from this amazing treasure that was alone and abandoned. Oh how we wanted to jump out of the car and explore, but the sun was beginning to hide and besides it had an NO TRESPASSING sign up so we thought we had better wait... We drove around the block 3 more times because we just had a hard time leaving that lovely old mansion... Oh to know the history...

We then made our way to of course... The Paris Bakery.. I mean ... Where else???

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While waiting on pizza to take home to our kids and husbands, we had some stuffed cabbage rolls... Oh it was sooo good!! If you have seen our previous blog about Paris, well you already know that the Paris Bakery is the place to go!!

We left there and decided to go through the beautiful and famous cemetery before it got to late, cause ya know... we like old stuff! Evergreen Cemetery is not only famous for guest like Sam Bell Maxy and other great Texans buried there, but as of 2014, there were more than 40,000 graves including over 400 unknown or unmarked graves at this location. Because many graves were moved from the old City Cemetery when Evergreen was created it is hard to know the actual date of the first grave, but they believe it could be as early as 1840's. The stones were beautiful and we actually did find Sam Bell Maxy also!!

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We also made our way to the little Jewish cemetery that we have talked about before in our previous blog to show Lisa, it is a small place that is unkempt and right smack in the middle of town... It is amazing to see these beautiful stones that are so old and so sad to see them spread out and all alone, but at the same time it's peaceful and private and unbothered... We took Lisa on by the Courthouse that has lots of rich history in itself. You can see pics of that in our previous blog Fried Green Tomatoes under the Big Top!!

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As the sun began to close our day out we knew it was time to head home. We learned that the Oklahoma State Cowboys had won and our beloved Sooners had also won the Golden hat, no thanks to the Administrator who left us hanging when our phone service was not good, but we learned it thanks to a friend (Thank you Hyla!) So we took extra pride in crossing the Big ole Red River back into Oklahoma... but not before stopping and having a dilly bar from the Sonic!