Bead-Bigfoot Tan Red Carved Stone Donut TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

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.

Bigfoot is in northeastern Frio County.  The site was settled about 1865 and during its early years was known as Connally's Store, for Bob Connally.  D. T. Winters established a gin and mill there by 1880.  When James Connally secured a post office for the community in 1883, he named it Bigfoot, for William A. A. (Bigfoot) Wallace, a famous Texas Ranger and resident of the community.  

A Baptist church was organized there in the 1880s, and by 1890 Bigfoot had a general store and an estimated population of twenty-five.  During the 1890s citizens opened a public school, which in 1907 had three teachers and 105 pupils. The community had a population of 146 in 1900, but much of the town's business section burned in 1903.  Bigfoot's population fell to an estimated 100 by the 1930s.  With the development in the 1950s of the Bigfoot oilfield to the south, the community grew, and in 1964 it had a population of 210.  During the 1970s its population diminished again, and was estimated at seventy-five from 1972 to 1992.  In the 1980s Bigfoot still had the post office, two businesses, and three churches.  By 2000 the population had grown again to 304.