Blueprints
at Addison Circle
The Town of Addison is located in an area once called Peters
Colony. It was settled as early as 1846 when Preston Witt built a
house on White Rock Creek. The area was not known as Addison until
1902. Addison was named after Addison Robertson, who served as the
community's second postmaster from 1908-1916. In 1902, the first
industry was introduced to Addison when a cotton gin was built on
Addison Road, near the railroad, by the Pistole brothers. It became
the Plano Cotton Oil Mill in 1904 and the Farmers Gin of Addison in
1919.
As you may or may not know, the town of Addison recently
underwent a major facelift by the addition of the Blueprints at
Addison Circle art sculpture (yes, the big blue thing in the middle
of the round-a-bout) and more recently with the completion of the
Addison Circle Park. I suggest that you start your entry to
this multi-cache at the signs on the SW corner of the circle, which
guide you through the blueprints in steel above your head in
blue. The blue thingy actually has a purpose! It
portrays the history of Addison in blueprint form on top (the parts
that are highest and furthest out from the center actually have
drawings in steel!) from a scale schematic of the original town to
a drawing of Addison Circle itself. Take a minute to look at
all of the signs that show you each wing of the sculpture and what
it stands for. You'll be glad you did.
THE CACHE:
The coordinates start you at a circle in the ground.
You'll need to pay attention to this and
count ALL of the
letters, as the longitude clue below will require
this to calculate the final stage longitude coordinates.
Now, starting at stage 1, take a walk, following the markers on
the ground, which represent all of the stops that were available
from this stop on the Cotton Belt Route, a famous train line that
ran from Texas up through Missouri back in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. As the name suggests, the primary
purpose of the line began as a way to move cotton! Now, be
sure to count the cities along the way. STOP on city #26 (the
city starts with an "S" and ends with an "R") as you walk in
a westward direction from the starting circle.
This city is the basis of your final stage latitude coordinates, so
count the letters carefully.
Coordinates for the final stage
2:
N 32.57.6XX, where XX = the
number of letters in the 26th city x 6 plus 5.
W 096.49.7YY, where YY = the total number of letters
in the first round circle where you started,
including the city MINUS 15.
Take a minute or two to walk the whole park. It's a real
beauty.