The Impact of President Bush’s
Getaway Ranch on McLennan County
Speech by
Tom Kelly on Feb. 26th 2002
Crawford Impact
These days, retirees who sip
coffee every morning at the town's only gas station are likely to meet tourists
buying
T-shirts proclaiming, “Crawford,
Texas: where governors and presidents are in high cotton.” ($15 ea. – $17 for XXL) Visitor spending in Crawford is responsible
for year-to-date unit sales tax receipts that are 90 % higher than a year ago.
Crawford residents hope for a success
story similar to that in the central Texas hometown of Lyndon B. Johnson, who
became president after John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination and was re-elected
the next year. He often returned to his LBJ Ranch near Johnson City, some 70
miles west of Austin. Today the LBJ
Ranch is a significant tourist attraction with drive-through access.
Crawford once was a thriving
agriculture community with three cotton gins, two grocery stores, a drugstore,
bank, movie theater and car dealership.
Population growth stimulated by the Santa Fe railroad line passing
through Crawford from Temple to Fort Worth reached 600 in 1910. But, by the 1950s population had fallen to
425. Most businesses closed as small
farms stopped operating and people moved to bigger cities. The community became
a mix of retirees and those who work in Waco, 20 miles to the east, attracted
by the Crawford Independent School District.
The 2000 Census reported 705 residents in Crawford, up 11.7 percent over
the decade (slightly below the 12.9 percent growth of the entire county.)
But, with the Bush Ranch just
outside of Crawford, folks already have seen signs of growth. A new coffee shop
and an antique shop opened recently, an announcement of a new bank, and there's
talk of a hotel and restaurants.
Tonkawa Park is now open for business for RV campers, a picnic area, and
the family swimming hole. The Crawford
Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture has been formed and housed in an old
caboose. Residents have expressed some
concern over traffic congestion, but they agree that it’s a small price to pay
to have the President living in your town.
The Bush Ranch
Bush never released financial
details of the ranch purchase, but local real estate agents have said the
1,600-acre property is worth $1.2 million, or $800 to $900 per acre. The market
value is $988,353, according to the county tax appraiser's office. Bush constructed a single-level ranch house
on 10,000 square feet with high-ceiling rooms making up about one-third of the
space. A limestone porch takes up the
rest, circling the house like a moat.
(The builders, who Bush got to know on a first name basis, were from a
religious community in El Mott.)
There’s a swimming (“whining”) pool for his twin daughters and a 10-acre
man- made pond stocked with 5,000 bass to serve his love of fishing.
President Bush at his ranch near
Crawford is the way he likes to see himself —rugged, real and thoroughly Texan.
But Bush's persona at the ranch is also more than an act. He seems at peace in
this place where he knows each tree and hollow. And, like LBJ, President Bush delights in showing of his ranch to
important visitors, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin last November.
The Crawford community center was
the location for the Crawford Summit that included Secretary of State Colin
Powell, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, National
Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and Counselor to the President, Karen
Hughes. The town swelled to the max
with over 500 government officials and news correspondents from Newsweek,
Reuters, Bloomberg, CBS, ABC, Associated Press, FOX, CNN, Boston Globe, and
many others. The Red Bull Café sold
lots of tee shirts and Waco hotels filled up.
The McGregor Impact
Managers of the McGregor Airport have
reported mixed benefits from the Bush Ranch location. The McGregor Airport has received revenue from private plane
fly-ins by media officials, including Barbara Walters, Connie Chung, and Dan
Rather. But, during the President Putin
visit the FAA and Secret Service established a 15-mile no fly zone that
encompassed the McGregor Airport, causing them to loose about $2 thousand per
day in revenue. They have since
negotiated a 10-mile no-fly zone that will eliminate this problem. Still the noise of F-16s patrolling the air
space are heard constantly when President Bush is in residence.
According to McGregor officials
the controversy between McGregor and Waco over commercial development around
the McGregor Airport has hindered their negotiations with a large developer
interested in locating a hotel and restaurant at the airport, partly in
response to potential travelers to the Bush Ranch. McGregor reports some increase in existing local restaurant use
among Bush Ranch visitors.
The Westward Corridor
There is little doubt that the
Bush Ranch will provide a positive stimulus to land values in the immediate
area. But, even without the Bush Ranch
the corridor of land west of Waco is destined for increased growth. Over the past decade, McLennan County added
24,400 persons and 9,500 households.
Builders have been busy adding subdivisions to accommodate housing
demand in the county, and many of these subdivisions are in the westward
corridor from Waco toward the area bounded by McGregor, Crawford, and China Spring.
How fast will it develop? Last week I dropped into the service station
across from the old Midway Junior High School to have my car inspected. While waiting I began talking with an
elderly may about the purchase and future commercial use of the property that
is the current site of the old Midway Jr. High School at Estates and Highway
84. He recalled that the original bond
issue to build the school was $176 thousand and they had money left over. He talked about hunting in the area from all
the way to the river (now Lake Waco) as a boy.
Why the move by Waco residents to
the West? During the “hoof and foot”
years of Waco’s early history, people lived close to where they worked. Streetcars (eventually electrically driven)
connected city residents to their jobs.
Eventually, professionals with higher incomes, more leisure time, and
lower cost of commuting after the automobile, sought higher ground to avoid
flooding from the Brazos River. First,
Castle Heights—then the Lake streets—finally into Woodway. Commerce followed from West View shopping
center at Waco Drive and Valley Mills, followed by the Lake Air Mall and the
Richland Shopping Mall. Highway 84 is
fast becoming the “new Valley Mills” with commercial retailing and hotel space
rapidly developing from Waco Drive to Estates Drive.
Since 1970 the Central city of the
Waco MSA has increased 19.3 percent, while the suburbs have increased 91.1
percent. And the suburban flight has
not stopped. Nearly all of the growth
in Waco city population over the next 30 years will come from recently annexed
areas and from additional areas to be annexed from within it’s existing 5-mile
extra territorial jurisdiction. The
movement to the west is like a big steamroller that gathers momentum, taking with
it the economic center of the county.
The flood from Waco will eventually merge with the ripple from
McGregor—Crawford.
The Bush Library
I couldn’t talk about the impact
of President Bush on McLennan County without discussing the most important potential
outcome—the location of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Center at
Baylor University.
Projected to attract between 300
and 500 thousand visitors annually, the Library and academic center would add
$210 million to the Central Texas Region during the construction phase. (A conference hotel would add an additional
$20.2 million during its construction phase.) The annual impact of visitor spending would amount to between
$8.6 and $13.8 million annually, creating 300 tourist jobs. Ten faculty jobs and 70 library staff jobs
and ongoing budget of the School of Public Affairs would increase local income
by another $13 million annually.
This would be huge and would be
enough to form a critical mass for additional hotels and restaurants along the
Brazos River Corridor. Will it
happen? Perhaps the proximity of the
Bush Ranch and the hospitality of Crawford and other McLennan County citizens
will be the catalyst needed to propel Waco tourism to greater heights.
Sources:
At your leisure, you might be
interest in the following web sites:
http://www.crawfordtx.com/ (An on line
web page of Crawford with pictures and comments from visitors)
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/hlc58.html
(History of Crawford from its inception in 1850s)
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/ (News published in Crawford, Texas)