Saturday, November 7, 2015

July 17, 1975 or, The Road to Pearland is Never Smooth


The photo above was one of the first I scanned two years ago at the start of this project. 

When I first came across this photo, I thought it looked like an outtake for a Coke commercial. 

Marie told me she remembered getting the call that people were laying in the roadway and she rushed out to get a photo of them. 

I finally found the news story, which wasn't in the Leader files anywhere. 

It's from an edition of The News in 1975 and was published without any photo credit. 



No trespassing signs will be placed at the Sagemeadow end of a private dirt road connecting Green Tee Terrace and Sagemeadow following a weekend of trouble concerning the road, according to Bob Tresch of the Ayrshire Corporation. 

People from both Green Tee and Sagemeadow have been using the dirt road since May when it was opened as a private road for the convenience of residents of both subdivisions. 

They Aryshire Corporation, builders of Sagemeadow, put up a pole barricade at Sagecountry last week and someone moved a portion of it to block the road's other Sagemeadow access at Blackhawk. 

The barricade consisting of 60' telephone poles has been removed and replaced by various unknown individuals several times over the weekend. 

Finally, Pat Gelmas of Sageplum Street became exasperated with the situation and insituted a "laydown" in the middle of the esplanade on Blackhawk. 

"I'm just damn tired of cars coming down Sageplum and Blackhawk and endangering not only my four year-old's life but the life of others as well," Mrs. Gelmas told a NEWS reporter (Marie).

The Harris County Sheriff's office finally convinced Mrs. Gelmis she should leave her position on the esplanade, but not before she and her entourage were threatened by four teenagers in a car. 

The esplanade must be cross to get onto Blackhawk and, according to Mrs. Gelmis, the teens threatened to run she and her group down if they did not move. 

Manning the barricade with Mrs. Gelmis were various neighborhood children and her German Shepherd dog. 

David Smith of the Green Tee Corporations says he knew of the barricade but says to his knowledge no one in his office removed it. 

"We get calls when its up and calls when its down," he told the NEWS.



[T]resch says he will put up "no trespassing signs" until a proper road is put in connecting Green Tee to Blackhawk Blvd.

"I'm sure it can all be worked out," Tresch said.

Smith, however, expressed surprise when told the no trespassing signs would be posted at both Sagecountry and Blackhawk, preventing entire access between the two subdivisions.

He said there are no plan s to put in a permanent road until the property at the junction of Green Tee and Sagemeadow is sold and a permanent location for the road can be determined.

He added that a possible sale of the land is in the works.


The following summer, June 24, 1976:



The back way non-road dirt option to cut through to Green Tea was an ongoing issue in the neighborhood. Residents new well enough how long they might wait to finally see "proper" road construction and refused to heed warnings from Harris County until the road was turned into a ditch to stop the illegal passage. 


August 12, 1976


Harris County added a dirt extension from Blackhawk so that it was possible to again take the shortcut into Pearland from the back of Sagemeadow.  That means the cost of digging that huge ditch to keep people out, covered here, only six weeks prior, was not particularly efficient use of public funds, no? The extension opened in the first week of August. 


More than a decade would pass and in 1986 The Leader would feature these stories:

May 22, 1986

Can't Wait

Motorists have been taking their chances on whether one of the two above new entrances to Green Tee from Scarsdale is passable. Motorists are encouraged not to use the roads as the concrete has not yet settled. The road is expected to be officially open within 30 days.

I even managed to find one of these photos still stashed among the piles:

528-DJM's driver is either taking the photo or hiding out.

 . . .

34 days later . . .

June 26, 1986

Green Tee road barricaded . . .

Barricades have gone up along the stretch of Scarsdale Blvd. that connects Sageglen and Green Tee subdivisions. The road has been closed by Ayrshire Developers at the request of County Commissioner El Franco Lee. The road will open when formally accepted by the city of Pearland.

[I'm not sure if that happened by the end of summer, but I do remember it being open by Christmas time. So, not 30 days, but less than 6 months!]


2 comments:

  1. LOL, I remember all of that. The Gilmus family lived on one side of Blackhawk and Sageplum and we lived opposite. The road started behind our fence. We kids loved it when they dug that trench, what a great thing to play in ... until it filled up with water and became a serious hazard. I remember the German Shepherd dog mentioned in the story, his name was Kip. That road was closed off and on and it formed the setting for the majority of my childhood adventures.

    True story - because my friends and I were on the "close the road" bandwagon (for selfish reasons, we believed the field out there should be ours), we blocked it one day with debris and old dumped appliances. While we were building our barricade, several cars had to turn around. One that didn't was a sheriff's deputy that chased us into our trails and caught us in our fort in the brush. We were told to clear the road and to go home and tell our parents what we had done. He told us to give our names and phone numbers to him - he was going to call our parents that night and make sure we had told them what we had done. I gave my info, being an honest kid. My friends laughed at me later, they all gave bogus info. Fortunately for me, the deputy never called.

    That road was a great source of adventure for us. Dozens of drivers got stuck in that road's mud and came knockig on our door to use the phone. They'd have to abandon their cars out there of course, until it was dry enough to get a tow truck out. That was an invitation for us kids to raid the cars. I confess nothing... aheam, just heard about it from someone else... ;-)

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  2. This is so cool, it's my family that was blocking the road. Just happened to be searching fo an old photo and stumble across this. Thanks for posting!

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