I had just left San Saba heading for Llano and home. I knew Llano was about thirty-five miles.There was a "click" and the light came on telling me I needed gasoline. What does a man do in this kind of situation? He keeps driving! That's what I did. I knew the truck wouldn't make Llano but I thought it would make CHEROKEE. As I drove I recalled RICHLAND SPRINGS had no gas station and they were as large as CHEROKEE. I turned off the AC and nursed the truck into this little Hill Country town. Sure enough, there was a station. There were two pumps. One for diesel and one for regular. It didn't take a card. A garage was attached to the filling station and I saw a man climbing out from under a car. We exchanged "howdys" and the weather report. I looked at the price of his gas and decided not to fill up. They had heard about the price going up, but the word of it's fall had not reached CHEROKEE. I told him I would take $20.00 worth. He stood close to me, wanting to run the gas in. Maybe this was full-service? Well, no. You get an oil check and wipe at the windows. He told me he would hit close to twenty and if he went over it would be okay. It ought to be for what I was paying.
I had a few moments to take a look at this tiny town with it's rock buildings. I think most of them were closed and had been for years.Found out CHEROKEE goes back to 1878. I could never discover why the Indian name. There were Texas Cherokees. In fact Texans had a war with them and nearly wiped them out. They were one of the five "civilized" tribes. The others so classified are: Chickasaw,Choctaw,Creek, and Seminole. We were not always civilized in our dealings with them. The Cherokees of North Carolina were forced to walk 1,000 miles to Oklahoma after congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Men, women and children made the trek and 4,000 of them died along the way. The Indians called that "nunna daul Tsuny," , "the trail where they died".
CHEROKEE had once hosted Cherokee Academy which would become West Texas Normal then Cherokee Junior College. It would then become Cherokee High School. The school is there in town on INDIAN road. (Where else?) A couple of miles outside the town is a nicely-kept children's home sponsored by churches of Christ.The Cherokee Schools are rated exemplary and they have a 1:8 student-teacher ratio. Robert and Dolores Edwards are going to CHEROKEE real soon to speak at the Baptist church there. They should give me more insight on the place when they return. CHEROKEE is on highway 16 between San Saba and Llano. Watch your gas needle.
