Did you ever wonder why there is an Olympic-sized concrete swimming pool sitting in a pasture on the south side of Texas FM-899, 2.3 miles west of the Ferguson Road/Texas FM-899 intersection? It's gigantic size, age, and rural location indicates that the huge swimming pool was once much more than a back-yard splash spot, and has a story to tell.
The swimming pool and the residence located at 1881 FM-899, immediately west of the big pool, are all that remain of the El Moro Court and Spring Beach Swimming Pool, a 1930s Titus County tourist camp and recreation area.
Motor courts, the forerunner of modern motels, (also called tourist camps and sometimes road houses) came into being in the 1920s as automobiles became affordable for the average family and Americans began to drive to distant places on business and for pleasure. Motor courts had an office and sometimes also had a café, bar, service station, or other things pertaining to their business operations located in a centralized building or area. Rather than having many guest rooms built next door to each other down a central hall in the same building like today's motels, tourist court guests stayed in one or more rows of small private cabins. The cabins might be only an individual guest room, or some were constructed as duplexes. Some motor courts provided enclosed garages or open carports for automobiles, others didn't.
Tourist courts preceded chain motels, and each one had its own personality dictated by the whims of its owner or builder. Most by far were independently owned, and there were no cookie-cutter buildings or standardized guest rooms. Some tourist cottages were elaborately designed in shapes like Indian tee-pees or other unique shapes to attract the traveling public's attention and make them stand out from their competitors. Some guest rooms were clean and very nice, others weren't -- you never knew until you checked in. There were no national booking facilities like today. Most motels did not have swimming pools, and some offered rooms but did not have restaurants or other facilities.
Back in the 1930s when the El Moro Court was in operation, Mt. Pleasant's FM-899, now a quiet Texas Farm Road and Interstate 30's south service road between Mt. Pleasant and Winfield, was part of Highway One, the heavily-traveled main traffic artery between Dallas and Little Rock.
On September 23, 1929, E. L. Roofe and his wife Alice bought about 5 acres of land on the south side of the Bankhead Highway in the J. H. Crooks Survey from A. P. Williams and his wife Ola. The Roofes built the El Moro, a true motor court, on their land in 1930. Mt. Pleasant was much smaller then and the El Moro sat three miles outside of town.
The office and a café were located near the highway in the only building that now remains. Six guest cabins were located beside and behind the office and café.
Not long after the El Moro opened, the Highway Department notified residents along Highway One from the Franklin County line to Mt. Pleasant that they planned to close the road for about two weeks to resurface the road. Mr. Roofe brought the proposed road closing to the Mt. Pleasant Rotary Club's attention in its July 22, 1930 meeting, and the club voted unanimously to protest to the division Highway Commission engineer. Closing the road would send tourists through Paris and away from Mt. Pleasant. Other area highways had never been closed for paving, and doing so would mean a big financial loss to all the towns along the highway.
The El Moro not only served travelers, but encouraged local business, too. From the time that Dellwood Park closed almost 30 years before, Mt. Pleasant had no public swimming pool. The only places where people could swim were in natural reservoirs like lakes, farm pools, or creeks.
On March 11, 1931, Mr. Roofe announced plans to build Mt. Pleasant's first sanitary public swimming pool. Named the Spring Beach Swimming Pool, local residents were invited to come to the El Moro to swim. Swimmers could pay by the day or could purchase a season pass for the entire summer.
The big swimming pool's sides were made of brick and concrete, and had a children's wading area in the north end. The pool ranged from an estimated shallow depth of 3-4 feet on the north end to 10 or 12 feet on the south. The facility included public changing rooms and bath houses.
Mr. Roofe drilled a 500 foot deep well on the property to supply the pool with water, and water from the well in combination with a spring flowed in volume day and night through two skimmers, then over a waterfall built of natural stone and into the pool. In addition to providing a year-round water source for the swimming pool, the well also provided water for the café, pool-side bath houses, and the facility's only flush toilet.
Mr. Roofe turned the little shaded valley into a park and picnic area. A rock-lined stream fed by the well that filled the pool wound through the picnic area. Mr. Roofe lined the stream with flowers and plants. Picnic tables sat on specially poured concrete slabs. A small parking lot was located near the picnic area, and was equipped with hitching rails to accommodate people who came to the El Moro by horse or buggy.
People from all around the local area flocked to the El Moro to swim and picnic. Kids that lived close enough just walked over, and people from neighboring communities rode horses or came in their farm wagons and buggies. People who lived in Mt. Vernon and Winfield and other areas a little more distant who had cars drove to the El Moro.
The big 'ole swimming pool not only served to draw travelers off the highway, but Mr. Roofe used the tourist court's location on a narrow slice of land between the highway and the railroad to his advantage.
In the 1930s, many people still traveled by train, so Mr. Roofe's motor courts had the best of both worlds. The front of his place was highly visible to tourists traveling by automobile on Highway One, and the back of his property could be seen from the railroad. As people came into town from the west, they passed right by his place.
Air conditioning was still rare in the 1930s, and Texas summers were just as hot and sultry as they are today. In 1930, the only place in town that was air-conditioned was the Martin Theatre. The Jefferson Hotel, Mt. Pleasant's finest, didn't get air conditioning until 1936.
After he built the big swimming pool, Mr. Roofe erected a big sign facing the railroad. As people passed by on the train, which wasn't air conditioned either, they would see his sign and the big swimming pool, and it is said that when they got to town the first thing they did was to catch a cab from the depot right back to his tourist courts.
The Roofes prided themselves on their pool's cleanliness, and stressed its cleanliness in their advertising. They chlorinated the pool water and checked the chlorine levels daily. In May, 1937, they concreted the bottom of the deep end of the pool.
Being three miles from town and located on a main highway, the El Moro, like remote present-day establishments, occasionally fell victim to traveling criminals. Gambling, in the form of slot machines, was legal in Texas in the 1930s. Many businesses, including some in downtown Mt. Pleasant, had one or more slot machines in them just like you see gum or candy machines today.
Early Tuesday morning, October 5, 1937, three men who later gave their names as Jimmie Shelton, J. W. Rodey and David Smith, all of Corpus Christi, came into the El Moro café and ordered breakfast. After eating, they picked up a nickel slot machine, threw it in the back of their car, and started to leave. As they sped away, a female café attendant tried to stop them, but was shoved off the car as it sped away.
Constable Ben Roberson and Deputy Constable Slim Workman of Winfield trailed the men to the White Oak bottoms north of Winfield by 10 o'clock that morning. There they found the men had removed the money from the slot machine scattered it on the ground nearby. The three were arrested on charges of robbery by force and jailed in the Titus County jail, where they were also investigated for stealing two suits of clothing from the car of two Federal agents at the Log Cabin Tavern the night before.
While specific information about the El Moro Courts is rather limited, it appears to have had a thriving business while Highway One was routed through the Farmer's Academy Community. As sometimes happens in tourist-related businesses, Highway One, which later became U.S. Highway 67, was re-routed in the early 1940s in a straight line from north of Mt. Pleasant to the Franklin County line. When that happened, tourists bypassed the El Moro as they followed the main highway.
