For years, there's been a "Carbon-izer.com" button at the top, and I've decided that to better serve this site I should integrate those a bit better. What I've essentially done is created a whole webpage for everything on Texas Avenue that does NOT have a blog post, and for most of it, never will. The Texas Avenue page, as of this writing, will be updated by the end of the month (yes, it does have some rough edges), but also serves as a landing page for all the other categories that fit into it. I verified everything below to go in...couldn't find [bars and nightclubs] though...and more will likely be added.
This page is not on the Index.
Because of the limitations of Blogger, this particular post just covers brands. More pages to cover soon.
Tags currently on this post:
Exxon,UtoteM,Circle K,AutoZone,Church's Chicken,Dairy Queen,Texaco,McDonald's,Whataburger,Starbucks Coffee,Sonic,Taco Bell,O'Reilly Auto Parts,Dollar General,Shell,7-Eleven,Conoco,CVS,Enco,Max Food Mart
Friday, June 5, 2026
Thursday, May 7, 2026
404 University Center
Well, it happened again, the rate of posts was completely unsustainable for the last three months (certainly not worth the effort I put into them) and I crashed out. (See Editor's Note). Today we're doing 404 University Center, with the last of the pictures I used from the summer 2014 set. The rest of the photos are below.
The center was built in 1980 and this article mentions that there were additional warehouses behind the center that were intended for tenants but I'm not sure if that's still the case now.
The problem is, without a main anchor, the center is just a bunch of little smaller tenants that have moved in and out over the years. Some of the first tenants included Conway's (moved from Downtown Bryan)1, The Loading Zone restaurant, Italian restaurant Cenare (which operated up until March 2019), Harold's (at suite A), and Kelly's Toylane (moving from Townshire), DeAngelos (a gourmet food store with wines, meats, and cheeses, similar to Ira's).
It would be difficult to go over the full history of this center when places entered and exited, but Cashion-Cane (aka Cashion-Cane/The Christmas Store) moved here in the late 1980s from 504 Harvey Road. If it was originally a year-round Christmas store it wasn't by the late 1980s, and while it had a big seasonal influence it was mostly the "gift" department featuring silver, bridal china, stationary, and collectibles (see clipping). This occupied suite D before disappearing sometime around the mid-1990s. Suite A is currently (as of 2026 and since 2011) Thorn Music Center. In the late 1990s they opened Scott & White Pharmacy here, a S&W-owned pharmacy (not much in the way of other non-medical items) before moving it to 1100 Earl Rudder Freeway next to their clinic.2 By 2000 it was already the home of Wiggles & Wags, a dog grooming boutique which later moved to Bryan.
There was a TCBY location from at least 1991 to 2005. There are other defunct tenants I dug up in trying to find stuff, there was a storefront for McCaw Cablevision in the mid-1980s3 and a locally-owned sandwich shop called Deb's Deli (owned by one Debbie Sherman), and numerous others. Current tenants (as of January 2026) include Attitude Dance Boutique (since around 2018), Chef Cao's, Anytime Fitness (replaced Cenare)4, Century 21 offices, Myra's Custom Framing (since 1991, though I believe it replaced a different framing shop), and a few others. In the future I may end up adding some smaller tenants that have come and gone over the years. Let me know (email) if you want to see more...though I may end up adding a few anyway.
1. Their old address was 103 N. Main Street, for future reference.
2. This closed around the late 2010s.
3. McCaw sold its cable business in 1987 (ultimately, it fell to Suddenlink/Optimum) in order to focus on the burgeoning cellular phone industry. AT&T ("Ma Bell") purchased a third of the company in 1992 with the rest of the company being acquired in 1994 in a huge merger, ultimately forming the foundation for the modern AT&T Mobility we know today.
4. I had somehow conflated it with 24-Hour Gyms of Texas, which existed at 700 University Drive East.
Editor's Note: Burn-out affected me hard as to why there wasn't any posts recently, especially as to how things were going—it was ALWAYS something along a major road, maybe something I covered in the past, or a gas station, or a restaurant. There was a poor feedback loop (rather discouraging for a highly local site like this—I don't expect a lot of money (but I would appreciate it) but I rarely even get nice letters from people.
More recently, I've been writing reviews about Nintendo Power issues in order. Some issues got full, multi-page features, but some just had a paragraph, if that. It got me thinking...when I removed the Texas Avenue in Bryan page I had intended to re-add everything at one time...but what am I going to do about those other ones? Do you really want to wait for a feature on Dollar General? (Rhetorical question). While I haven't incorporated the new version of Carbon-izer just yet, I intend to add stuff that I likely won't cover on this site. To help integrate this into the site while working on the next big project to show up here (yes I have an idea for it), I may end up making "hidden" posts to account for the "city directory" pages and make them easily searchable; for example, when I redo Earl Rudder Freeway, I'll add [McDonald's], [cinema], [restaurants], [churches and other houses of worship], and [Target], just as an example.
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Days Inn on University Drive East
I did want to cover this one as it's part of dismantling the FM 60 page on Carbon-izer, and while I find hotels interesting, there's not a lot to say about this one. 901 University Drive East has been Days Inn by Wyndham College Station University Drive since December 2016. It has been associated with Best Western for most of its existence. From what I can tell it opened in 1983 as The Inn at Chimney Hill (back when Best Western was more an affiliation and not a brand)1 and while it did have an unbranded in-house restaurant serving Chinese food2. In 1986 it was foreclosed on, with the paper3 noting the University Drive East/Tarrow area was hit hardest by the recession. In 1988, the restaurant area was retooled again as Crepe Myrtle Bar (with "fine spirits and authentic country food"). Things didn't change much at the hotel, it was still a Best Western into 2005, though by 2007 it had lost that branding (just The Inn at Chimney Hill) and in January 2008 was rebranded as a Travelodge under then-owner Rossco Holdings (the old Holiday Inn/Forum reopened as such around the same time). By the early 2010s it took the EconoLodge name, by 2015 was branded as "Executive Inn & Suites and as previously mentioned became Days Inn after that.
Just as a side note, the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and the Comfort Suites hotel just to the east of this opened in 2005 and 2006, respectively, but since they are the original tenants they won't be covered anytime soon unless there's a really good reason.4
1. As a general rule, even up until around the mid-2010s, the "real" name of the hotel was below the Best Western sign.
2. The Chinese restaurant concept was changed by 1984, ads stopped talking about "authentic Chinese food" and starting talking about "now serving Omaha steaks".
3. "Hotel, shopping center posted for foreclosure". 7/29/86, The Eagle.
4. If, say, you wanted a sponsored post that would be pushed to the top of the site for a few weeks and be part of the permanent archive, the line is open. Advertisers, this means you!
UPDATE 06-05-2026: TexAgs mentioned this as of late May I believe but the hotel is no longer a Days Inn and now the Days Inn signs are used to read "Howdy Hotel". See, this is why I saved Days Inn's photo...I have a feeling it won't be there much longer.
Friday, March 20, 2026
Varsity II Apartments
Located at 100 Jersey Street (later 100 George Bush Drive) and built in 1966, Varsity II Apartments1 was a victim of right of way expansions for the George Bush Drive underpass project, which still has yet to be built. The apartments dropped the name (at least on the front of the building) sometime around the late 2000s and torn down around 2017, but despite their long run there's not a lot I can say about them other than they were just a fixture of Southgate and in the 2000s there was usually some old man at the stoplight impressing passers-by by grabbing the FM marker sign pole and doing horizontal pull-ups.2
The only major story of note I found about the apartment buildings was in August 1994, when 29-year-old Carl Henry Blue bought 50 cents worth of gasoline in a paper cup from the nearby Chevron3 and set his ex-girlfriend, 38-year-old Carmen Richard-Sanders4, on fire, with the resulting fire injuring one other person and doing "extensive damage" to the apartment building. It isn't clear to what extent things happened. The building wasn't torn down and only a few units were destroyed, but all the residents had to move out for a few days, mostly in relation to repairing gas furnaces. Richard-Sanders had to be airlifted to Hermann Hospital in Houston, but it was too late; she died of her injuries within 24 hours. Blue, who had already turned himself in when he caught wind of a manhunt, was charged with felony murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death.5 It was not the only fire at Varsity II over the years, but certainly the most notable one.
1. The question if there was a Varsity I is inconclusive. A few pre-1966 references have a reference to one being near Marion Pugh Lumber Company and having central air, so it's not 303 University and it's not clear if this was one and the same with Varsity II.
2. Bart Braden was his name and attracted a bit of notoriety including a Battalion article written about him. He passed away in January 2026 during the writing of this article.
3. While the Chevron or ownership was not charged in relation to Blue's crimes, it was (and is) against the law to sell gasoline in an unapproved container like a paper cup. Also, 50 cents in the mid-1990s was a significant amount of gasoline, closer to half a gallon...but the cup was probably not filled up to that much.
4. Initial reports put the victim's name as "Carmen Richardson", likely from a communications error.
5. Carl Blue was executed by lethal injection in February 2013.
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