FLATONIA—Downtown Flatonia was buzzing with activity Nov. 18 as residents and visitors alike helped celebrate Flatonia’s 150-year birthday. The weather was slightly overcast, but no rain to dampen the spirit of the event.
Flatonia came into being beside the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway in 1873.
Like many small towns that sprout up along this main train track, Flatonia was named after one of the first merchants of Flatonia, Friedrich Wilhelm Flato. They had a store two miles south.
There were kids’ activities, arts and crafts vendors, and plenty of food from the food trucks.
Around lunchtime, Victor Rodriguez sang old thyme country to people eating their lunches on picnic benches.
Inside city hall, it was all business not city business, but soup tasters trying to pick out the soup that feeds their souls in the soup contest.
It was a great day to be in Flatonia and have a good old-fashioned time and look to the future of Flatonia while remembering the past that brought it here.
Photo by John Jones, Banner Press
