Bead-Cologne Small Green Yellow Donut TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by more than 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The past average drop rate of my trackables in US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

If in the US, please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.  Much of the text is from the online Handbook of Texas or texasescapes.com. I have small to large connections to most of them, having visited or worked nearby.

Cologne is on U.S. 59 near the Victoria county line in eastern Goliad County. It was established by two former slaves, Jim Smith and George Washington, as a place where freedmen could settle. Smith and Washington, who operated a freighting and passenger business from Indianola westward, bought 500 acres at the site on Perdido Creek. In 1870 the first families began moving into the settlement, initially called the Colony and later Perdido Community. The name Centerville was adopted after Jim Hall noted that the site was halfway between Goliad and Victoria. Until after the railroad was built the town excluded all White settlers.

In 1889 the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway established a depot at Centerville but named the stop Ira Station, the name by which the community was known for about ten years. Hall exchanged land for the depot for a lifetime job as station agent and the guarantee that the railroad would not abandon the station. The town became a cattle slaughtering and shipping center, reportedly with a hog rendering plant as well. In 1898 a post office was established under the name of Cologne through the efforts of William Young. The new name was adopted because the abattoirs made the community "such a sweet-smelling place." A Methodist church was established in 1880, then a Baptist, though both were destroyed in the 1930s. A one-room school served as the recreational center, and a permanent racetrack and a baseball team provided sport. In 1914 about thirty-five people were living in Cologne. The post office was discontinued in 1925, and the population declined to twenty-five by 1940. Thirty-five residents were recorded from 1970 through 1986. The railroad station and cattle pens no longer exist, though part of the original town is now the location of a large power plant. The town was mentioned in John F. Kennedy's June 1963 speech in Cologne, Germany, where the president said, "I bring you greetings from the cities of America, including the citizens of Cologne, Minnesota, Cologne, New Jersey, and even Cologne, Texas." In 1990 the population was eighty-five.