A BIG Dime in a Box in Dime Box, Texas. Not making this up.
There it was: A big dime, about two feet across, in a big plexiglass box – in Dime Box, Texas.
Folks, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
It was awesome.
A dime. In a box. In Dime Box, Texas. Oh, the irony.
Do you think a big dime is worth more than ten cents?
Of course, this begs the obvious question: Which came first? Was there a dime in the box and people built a town around it, or was the town already named Dime Box and someone with a sense of the ironic built a big dime and put it in a box?
To add to the mystery, the town welcomes you with a massive mailbox.
Can you say, “Airmail”?
Annnd, they (whomever “they” are) put it so high up in the air only a small airplane would be able to deliver mail to it.
But the mail would have to be pretty big to fit in that giant mailbox. Then, you’d need a much bigger plane to deliver that big mail.
This is probably why the post office is going out of business.
Believe it or not, the big dime and the giant mailbox are related. Cue your lesson for today…
A long time ago, like when horses brought the mail, if you wanted a letter delivered you left it, along with a dime, in a wooden box for weekly delivery to nearby Giddings. This wooden box was inside the Brown’s Mill post office.
Ah-ha! A clue! The town was originally named Brown’s Mill. So now we know the dime-in-a-box came first.
Apparently the practice of placing a dime in a box along with your letter was somewhat unique to this town or a lot more towns would have a big dime in a box.
It does too make sense.
See the Big Dime in small Dime Box and the Big Mailbox on Ramsey St./FM 141, in Dime Box, Texas, which is just over an hour east of Austin.
That must be a really old dime, unless Ike had wings growing out of his head…
It’s dated 1917. Most people call the depiction Mercury, but I guess you can say Ike. It’s supposed to be a Winged Liberty (goddess) Head dime.
I wonder if the dime and that huge mail box are to scale? I’d hate to see the size of the horse and postman. I knew things in Texas were big, but geez!
LOL I’d like to know how much the dime weighs. With all the theft of copper, I’m surprised some numb-nut hasn’t tried to steal the dime, thinking it might be real silver. (Now I’m curious – I wonder what it’s made of!)
Dime box is a cool place, and if you get to Giddings, there is a mexican restaurant, that will take you two days to finish, I’ll have to see if I can find the address for you, and don’t forget to visit the museum/library, all kinds of cool stuff, there is also a bbq place that if you want bbq, get in line about 9AM
I didn’t stay long in Dime Box, just took the photos and left. I was on a series of stops. I did go to La Grange and Warrenton on another stop, but I think I only drove through or near Giddings. Shoot me the address if you come across it!
In Giddings, if Carmen isn’t talking about Chihuahua’s….she should be. Don’t let the name deter you…they make the BEST breakfast tacos I’ve ever had. They close around 3pm and typically there will be a line, but you can watch them hand making their fresh tortillas while you wait. If you are in the mood for something around dinner time, I suggest heading over to Elm Creek off of highway 21 near Manheim (maybe a 15 minute drive…worth it!). It’s in an old farm house, but you’ll typically see plenty of cars in the parking lot. They have homemade, fresh salad dressings, amazing fried pickles, and the most amazing grilled quail. I warning though…if you get the chicken fried steak and think you can handle a large….well, trust me. You can’t. 😉
Also, Kernut, if you had gone just a touch further down 141, turned at Barefoots Grocery on the left, and continues a few 100 feet to the lot next to the SPJST hall, you would have been privy to our old suspension bridge. It was closed when I was very young, but I remember begging my grandma to always take it to cross the tracks. I was maybe 3 or 4 when it was closed for safety issues, so probably around 1990 or 1991. It sat, lonely and forgotten, for years, until a few of the townspeople raised the money to have the bridge moved from its original location over the railroad tracks, to its current home next to the hall. It’s utterly random and essentially just looks like a giant bridge in the middle of a field, but it’s ours and we are very fond of it. If you are ever in the area around the first weekend in October, you can stop by the Black Bridge Festival, which was named in honor of our Black Bridge. There’s music, a cook off, coolers filled to brim with cold beer, and my uncle revived the small rodeo arena (which has fallen into disrepair…but that’s a story in itself) next to the high school (yes, there’s no football field, but we have a rodeo arena) and he has started hosting a bull bucking each year during the festival.
If you make it back this way and ever want a little local advise on where to go, feel free to email me! I’m a geography/history nerd and I know a decent bit about Lee County (and Brazos and Walker…I’ve lived in all three). So I have to ask…if you were in the La Grange area, please tell me you stopped to visit at least one of the Painted Churches…they are spectacular.
Hello Ashley! Thank you so much for the tips on great places to eat and see! I will definitely hit some of them up next time I head back that way.
I did visit La Grange a while back, but stopped to see Cinderella’s carriage. Loved it! The painted churches in and around Shiner are on my bucket list. I didn’t realize there was one in La Grange. And I LOVE bridges that go nowhere. Been to one in Yuma, Arizona, and another in Gonzales, Texas. (I think I may have written about the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Yuma, but I can’t recall at the moment.) I should visit Black Bridge and write a post about all three.