A Look Around Coupland

This is one of those occasional forays into a small Texas town.  This time, it’s Coupland, Texas.   According to the latest census figures, Coupland, in Southeast Williamson County, has 298 residents.   It’s interesting to note, however, they do have their own post office.   From my home in Taylor, it’s only 8 miles south via Texas Highway 95.   Railroad tracks go through the town, but I’ve not seen much train traffic in visits there.  Coupland is home to the Coupland Inn and Dance Hall, which closed for a few years, but is up and running strong now.  There’s a caboose and depot station.  The local folks are in the process of raising funds to bring this bit of history to life again, thank goodness.  The town is also home to sculptor Jim Huntington, who you can find more about

.  Huntington was born in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1941, and spent years in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles before slowing his pace and landing here in 1994.  He does gargantuan sculptures, many of them visible right there in in his Huntington Sculpture Garden.  Those lucky enough to have  seen the 2003 movie, “Secondhand Lions,” starring Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Kyra Sedgewick and Haley Joel Osment,  might recognize some of Coupland in the movie, although a resident I chatted with last evening mentioned the producers misspelled the town’s name, calling it “Copeland.”  The last photo in this post is of the old truss bridge just outside town.   If you watch the movie mentioned, that’s the bridge at the end.   I pulled this frame from a 2014 visit to the bridge due to current construction on that road.  Hopefully, they’ll keep the bridge intact.