The Texas Avenue Page - Place Categories

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production facilities,bars and nightclubs,banks,hotels and motels,restaurants,redevelopment,shopping center,retail,barber,car dealership,car wash,churches and other houses of worship,liquor store,demolished,school

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Blinn Bryan Campus featuring Schulman 6

The full Blinn campus as of spring 2010, outlined in red-orange. College Park Center is the brown-roofed building toward the bottom specifically.
Class is back in session for the fall, so what better time to start this first week with a college-oriented post? I've briefly talked about the Blinn Bryan Campus in the past (particularly when it came to the shoddy offerings in the Student Center) but I wanted to give another overview with it. It's been a while since I last set foot in Blinn (not too many good things to say about it) but the first three buildings in the campus were dedicated in January 1997 with the others being filled out a few years afterward. The Taco Bell mentioned in the old thread did indeed operate in the Student Center building (that's the second from the left in the main campus, if you were looking at it from above) from approx. 2000-2003, though from 2010 to 2015 Maui Wowi set up a kiosk as well. The far left building housed the student center before it was bumped to the far building near the "College Park Center" campus...before that it was the administration building (back in the early 2010s)¹...and there was a strip mall before, notably housing DoubleDave's PizzaWorks (approx. 1998-2006)...and overall wasn't much to write home about (I took no pictures there, though I only had my crummy old cellphone camera back then).

The only real thing on campus of note was the "College Park Center" building, which was "connected" to campus by a 200-yard crosswalk through the parking lot. While I can't comment on the current Schulman's Movie Bowl Grille undergoing construction (or rather, lack thereof) at South College Avenue and Villa Maria Road, for decades the Schulman family operated theaters in Bryan. One of these was off East 29th Street. The Skyway Twin Drive-In opened in 1969 but closed around 1981, to be replaced by the Schulman 6 (which operated on a much smaller footprint) and opened January 1982, featuring the following movies: Modern Problems, Reds, Cinderella², Sharky's Machine, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While these movies all appeared later than what is in other cities (a common problem in Bryan-College Station at the time), it appears that at some point Schulman 6 became a second-run movie house, though I can't tell when (another article mentions that Cinemark had some sort of exclusivity contract when it opened, so possibly around 1993). There were interesting parts found in research, like the murder of theater manager Don Cravens Jr. in November 1988 (found dead the next morning)³. In April 1997 it closed and reopened in September as College Park 6 featuring first run movies (the first movies were Deep Impact, Titanic, The Big Hit, Lost in Space, The Odd Couple II, and The Object of My Affection.

I saw a few movies at Schulman 6 (renamed College Park 6 in the late 1990s) before it closed less than five years later.⁴ I don't remember which movies I saw specifically here (as opposed to the Cinemark Hollywood USA theater), though I do remember I saw Dinosaur here.

After it closed, it was purchased by Blinn and renovated into classrooms, with the first classes held in summer 2003. The largest theater was turned into lecture halls (keeping the seats from the 1997 renovation, albeit cleaned and re-installed), with the others also being converted to classrooms. Later on, the projection rooms upstairs were turned into studios for art classes (at some point an elevator installed and some other changes to make it ADA-compliant, but it still felt cramped up there)⁵. For a brief time in the early 2010s a mural was painted outside but that disappeared after a year or two.

1. This is now the college bookstore. The administration moved out to the Tejas Center at some point around the late 2000s.
1. Before the Walt Disney Classics VHS releases (colloquially, the "Black Diamond" collection) and the "Disney Renaissance", Disney re-released its classic animated films (basically up to and including The Jungle Book) in theaters on a semi-regular basis, with Cinderella in particular getting re-released no less than five times.
2. The way the paper phrased it indicated it wasn't immediately obvious that he was murdered, and while it was officially a robbery, the fact that it also involved another man who was Cravens' old lover makes the details a little more sketchy.
3. I tried to find what the last movies shown by the theater were. The newspaper printed the movies for Cinemark but in the last weeks of College Park 6's operation, it just read to "call for showtimes".
4. Records show the elevator was installed in 2010.

UPDATE 12-26-2025: The Skyway Twin and Schulman 6 operated simultaenously, with this article mentioning both. Skyway Twin closed in the winter of 1984 and never reopened.

The Sandstone Center

Initially this was out in the sticks, now it's just north of the Costco. (Ad from 1989 phone book) This site rarely covers churches, and when it happens it's usually an extenuating circumstance, like it wasn't always a church. This is one such instance. Sandstone Psychiatry (at 4201 Highway 6 South, though the ad says differently) opened in the mid-to-late 1980s with inpatient and outpatient care. It was a hospital/long-term care in some form and even featured a swimming pool. In the early 1990s, The Sandstone Center changed hands to become the Desert Hills Center (see update below), but at some point in the 1990s closed. In the late 1990s, the space in front of the former clinic was purchased by Christ United Methodist Church and a new facility was built (likely around 1999, the old address according to a 1998 phone book revealed that the church body existed but had no permanent space, listed as 4719 Shoal Creek Drive). By 2004, a second building was built as the main building while the old Sandstone building was used as auxiliary classroom space. In 2008, a third building was built between them, while integrating the parking lots better and adding another entrance off of Highway 6. The three buildings were connected with covered walkways. This would remain the configuration for the next decade. By the late 2010s, new roads were developed around the church. The main south entrance was removed for the construction of a segment of Pebble Creek Parkway, which was (presumably) to extend to the main road off of Highway 40. A few spaces in the back were removed for access to the Lakeway Drive extension. A driveway built on the north side of the property was developed as Carroll Fancher Way. Within a year of the expansion, the orphaned segment of Pebble Creek Parkway was renamed as Corporate Parkway, and Lakeway Drive's extension (including the segment of Lakeway that had opened in 2010) as Midtown Drive.

The old drive-up of Sandstone/the church following the 2020s renovation.
Around 2021-2022, the "Sandstone" building was completely renovated, removing the pool and expanding the building to integrate with the 2008 building, as well as removing the concrete beneath the concrete drive-up. All during this time, it was renamed as Christ Church (disconnect from the Methodist church over theology). The circa '99 building does not connect to the main combined building and still retains its covered walkways.

Desert Hills facility, 1995

Two buildings as of 2004.

Three buildings as of 2011.

Two buildings as of 2022.

UPDATE 01-26-2025: A bit more on Desert Hills. It was a youth facility explicitly for troubled students (not those words). According to another article, "almost all of the students have abuse and/or neglect in their histories, officials said, and their behavior problems range from at-risk delinquent youths to moderately emotionally disturbed". Desert Hills was definitely still operational in 1996 (one caption was amended to account for this) as per this newspaper ad.

A 1998 article (when it was discussed of closing in September) mentions that placement was dictated by government entities (CPS and Juvenile Services). It worked closely with CSISD though it did receive an official charter to open as its own charter school before closing permanently. All this came down to money and politics. (Still, [school] has been added here).

CUMC bought the property in front of it in 1999 and built a small church with the address of 4203, the purchase of the former Desert Hills facility was in 2000, and that's when it adopted its current address.

H-E-B Pantry / Harmony Science Academy

Most of the architectural details from H-E-B Pantry are gone, except the peak in the roof and those windows to the right of the entrance.
Despite a heavy retail-based focus on this website, I still haven't covered all the former grocery stores in town yet (even the post-1980 ones), and of course, the Bryan section on this website is still pretty small, with a good fifth of the Bryan content coming from since January 2020, but, like most of the Bryan content that's already there, it's on Texas Avenue.

I don't believe I went inside the H-E-B Pantry there at 2031 South Texas Avenue, but it was in an area with other grocery stores. It competed with Kroger and (for a few years) the Albertsons at the remodeled Townshire Shopping Center next door. It also had excellent access, it in addition to entrances off of Texas Avenue, long driveways connected it to both Twin Boulevard and Bywood Street. The store opened around September 1991 and closed in December 2004 shortly before the new H-E-B at the redeveloped Manor East Mall (Tejas Center) opened.

Following the move, the former H-E-B Pantry was left abandoned for a few years before Harmony Science Academy took it over in fall 2007 (though Google Maps Street View still shows the empty store with no signage as of November 2007). Later on, Harmony made more renovations to the property, including modifying the exterior and adding an expansion. It has also repainted since. In the Townshire article linked above, the exterior of the store is tan with dark red trim, the facade today is bright red, white, and blue.

This sign near Twin Boulevard is from H-E-B Pantry, which had the rounded rectangular signs.
Harmony Science Academy is no stranger to converting grocery stores, over at Carbon-izer.com you can see an overview of Valley Mills Road in Waco, where Harmony took over both an old Albertsons and an old H-E-B.

All pictures here were taken by the author in September 2021.

Editor's Note: As part of some minor changes, the only new posts will be either buildings that are demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story. So for instance, Spice World Market would not qualify ordinarily under this policy had it not been for the bit on Old Arrington Road. Likewise, even "being historic" would not qualify; therefore, something like Pruitt's Fabrics would not be covered.

Humpty Dumpty Children's Center

Printed advertisement from the 1980 GTE phone book
Requested by reader Jon Stewart (no, not that one) comes an ad for the late Humpty Dumpty Children's Center. Located at 3406 South College Avenue and opened in 1961 as the first local commercial daycare by Virginia Jones, Humpty Dumpty operated until the mid-1980s.¹

This post was delisted from the Index for a few years because it was confusing as to what buildings were used for the daycare. At the time of this article's writing, 3404 S. College Avenue, a long-defunct gas station serving as "The Guitar Studio" was in front of 3406-3408's buildings, with 3406 sharing 3404-3406. Complicating this was a 1980 directory listing 3404A as the home of Larry Jones. I've just decided to cover 3404 at a later date; but 3406 served as not just Humpty Dumpty but also daughter Jan Jones Hammond's² business, La Petite Academy of Dance. La Petite continued to operate after Humpty Dumpty's demise with the daycare portion leased as Kids Kampus Learning Center in December 1989. This went under a few different names including Heaven Sent (c. 1993) and Bright Beginnings (c. 1996), with the last reference for La Petite Academy of Dance somewhere around this point (at least using this address). Around 2001 the 3408 address began to be used, with Brazos Valley Montessori opening in 2001, after briefly serving as the daycare component of Covenant Presbyterian Church during their time of transit, before moving to their current campus at Edelweiss and Rock Prairie but after departing Northgate. I can't remember when Brazos Valley Montessori closed, I think it was around 2010-2011, not too long after Larry Jones passed away in 2009. In 2014 the Jones family sold the land, under the name "Humpty 3406 LLC", despite the fact that Humpty Dumpty had been gone for nearly 30 years. In the early 2020s the abandoned (or at least underused) buildings were demolished for an expansion of Carney's Pub next door. Street View link can be seen here.

1. Evidence for this is that when Ms. Jones passed away in 2003 (combined with "since 1961" and "25 years", one can assume Humpty Dumpty closed in 1986, though when redoing this post it looks like it closed in very early 1987. Pretty close!
2. Later ads and Virginia Jones' obituary just refer to her as Jan Jones. Probably divorced at some point.
UPDATE 03-09-2026: Post updated to split off 3404 and fix other stuff. It appears that the buildings date back to the 1960s.

Alta Vista Christian Academy

The entire Class of '98. (picture from The Eagle)

The time is September 1997. Rock Prairie has just recently or is in the process of extending from the stub where it abruptly dead-ended at Victoria Avenue all the way to Wellborn Road. Using the rural back road of North Graham Road was about to end, and in February 1998, a railroad crossing connecting Gandy Road and Rock Prairie Road was approved. It was this time that Alta Vista opened at 3110 Gandy Road.

The Rock Prairie extension only had a street sign (Wellborn/Rock Prairie Road) and a stop sign (along with a new Exxon station that opened, which included an A&W). Beyond the railroad was a dusty road ending at a yield sign, and that was Gandy Road. Though a dusty, rural road, it included the Diamond T Stables (still with "3270 Gandy", which remained on the sign until it was eventually sold to developers and torn down), some sort of facility that looked like a fish farm or water retention (little ponds in the back), and Alta Vista Christian Academy.

My only experiences of Alta Vista came from exploring the new extension of Rock Prairie after it opened circa 2000-2001. The new extension was fascinating: there was a dip in the railroad crossing (as opposed to the "humps" in the others): this was taken out when they expanded Wellborn Road. In the early days of the crossing (circa 2001, I believe), there was a four-way stop at Old Wellborn, and several country-oriented places along the way: including aforementioned Diamond T Stables, the adjacent Diamond T Storage (now Tex Storage), and of course Alta Vista (a small private school). The new extension went all the way to North Dowling, and then, on the other side, Blue Ridge Drive, which went even further.

Of course, all that began to change as urbanization slowly crept west. Alta Vista struggled for years, even having to be saved from bankruptcy in the early 2000s thanks to donations, but by the mid-2000s, Alta Vista had folded up and disappeared, with no trace remaining. It's now the Williams Gate subdivision.

As an aside, I remember how the old railroad ROW looked in 2001 (now the intersection of Holleman and Rock Prairie): it was a sad, gated-off place that was kind of creepy-looking due to the overgrowth, with the (patchy) I&GN Road going the other way. That was the original ending of Gandy (it curved into I&GN). The rest of the way has the partially-undeveloped Great Oaks Estates, farmland, and another trailer park (substantially less attractive than the ones closer to the old ROW). Today, that intersection is a stoplight with concrete and four lanes in all directions.

UPDATE 01-25-2025: I definitely updated this at some point in the last few years but didn't mark it. The Holleman South/Rock Prairie intersection definitely wasn't four lanes and signalized in 2013.