Alice, Texas is a small dusty town in southeastern
Texas. My dad was born in Alice and I remember spending parts of my summers there in the 1960’s. The main thing to know about Alice is there is not much to do there. The town has been slowly dying for as long as I can remember. In the 1950’s the population reached as high as 25,000, currently it is under 20,000.
What I remember most about Alice is the heat. It’s the heat that gets you in Alice, hot and dry for the most part despite being less than 50 miles from the coast. We stayed at my grandmother’s house, she did not have air conditioning grandma was tough. Grandma was also tight; she did not want air conditioning because she did not want to pay the electric bill for air conditioning. We finally bought her a big window unit and told her we would pay her electric bill.
Alice could be beautiful; the streets are wide and well laid out, most of the buildings were well designed, it’s just too hot, dry and dusty, there is not enough greenery. The soil in Alice is a grey white, its caliche and when caliche drys out it crumples to dust. White caliche dust covers everything in Alice. It’s like looking at the world through dirty lenses.
Alice is the county seat of Jim Wells County. The city was born in 1888 because it was the location where the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railways cross. Alice is named after the daughter of one of the founders of famed King Ranch.
Oil was discovered in Alice during the 1930s, for a while Alice enjoyed a short-lived mini oil boom.
Because it was located at the junction of two different railroads Alice became the worlds largest cattle shipping point from 1888 to 1893. The Beefmaster cattle breed was developed in Alice.
Alice is located about the Junction of US 281 and Hwy 44; 10 miles East of San Diego; 47 miles West of Corpus Christi; 40 miles South of George West; and 161 miles South of San Antonio on US 281 from I-37 South.
Alice is positioned 27.75 degrees north of the equator and 98.06 degrees west of the prime meridian.
There are ten city parks in Alice, (land is cheap), with fields, tennis courts, swimming pools and an 18 hole municipal golf course.
There is good hunting for white-tailed deer, javelina, wild turkey, quail and dove.