The US 90/Old Spanish Trail passes through downtown Flatonia as North Main Street, paralleling the Southern Pacific railroad tracks which splits the US 90 into North and South Main streets. North and South Main are divided further into East and West segments by the TX SH 95, because Flatonia's downtown is so sprawlingly huge and complex that you need that kind of directional assistance (not).
The Lyric Theatre in downtown Flatonia opened in 1913 as The happy Hour Theater, but got a name change in 1930 to Lyric Threatre, the name it operates under today (2017). It showed movies at 120 East South Main Street (one block south of the Old Spanish Trail) in downtown Flatonia until it closed in 1967.
In 2017 the Lyric has reopened, just in time for the Centennial of the OST.
From the Lyric Theatre website: (
visit link)
"The Lyric Theater formally known as "The Happy Hour Theatre" started out around 1913 as the winter home for the movies and shows in Flatonia.
If became The Lyric Theater in 1930. In 1952 it received a major renovation with its signature Marquee, indoor restrooms and new equipment.
Unfortunately in 1967 it showed its "last" movie Beach Blanket Bingo.
In 2007 a new owner began the slow task of bringing it back to life. Starting out much like the Happy Hour Theatre, movies were shown outside in the park on a painted screen on the side of the building.
Now in 2017, The Lyric Theater is once again ready to welcome new patrons thru its doors!"
From the Drive the OST website: (
visit link)
"The Old Spanish Trail Highway in Texas
By Hugh Hemphill, author of "San Antonio On Wheels"
and "The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas."
The concept of the first Southern transcontinental highway was begun in Mobile, Alabama. In 1915 civic leaders in the Gulf coast city announced plans for a better road to the Atlantic. At the same time, cities in Texas began to float ideas for improved access to New Orleans. In what became a series of annual conventions following the meeting held in Pensacola, Florida in 1916, a very grand vision arose for a continuous highway from the Atlantic at St. Augustine in Florida to the Pacific in San Diego California, a distance of 2,817 miles. While this does not exactly match the route of the modern IH 10 interstate, which runs from Jacksonville, Florida, to Los Angeles, California, it is fairly close and certainly demonstrated remarkable foresight at a time when there did not yet exist one hundred miles of continuously paved highway in the whole of Texas. . .
San Antonio was not originally included in the route proposed by the OST. Instead it was to go through the growing cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. A large delegation from San Antonio packed the 1919 OST conference in Houston and rectified the situation from the city’s point of view. San Antonio even assumed leadership of the OST within the state. . . .
As the Old Spanish Trail Highway progressed from Houston to San Antonio the route never strayed too far from the main Southern Pacific railroad tracks. . . . The OST did deviate from the railroads if counties along the way offered greater participation. Gonzales County did just that and so the OST swung south between Flatonia and Seguin, avoiding Luling at the southern tip of Caldwell County. . . . Being near the new main highway brought an additional advantage to railroad access."