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Hearne POW Camp

Hearne POW Camp
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LoveLife 11.2 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 8:56am  
Hearne POW Camp
 
I love reading about WW2 and recently learned that Hearne, TX had a POW camp for German and Japanese prisoners. Yesterday, my sons took me to the museum there for my birthday. We anticipated the small museum would only take a few minutes to view. Although the museum isn't huge it was bigger than we expected. The woman who worked there gave us a fun and interesting tour for an hour and a half tour explaining all the displayed items and included tales of life at the Hearne POW camp. The museum has many artifacts from the camp and WW2 in general. It was very interesting. After our tour, we had lunch at the Pony Express Bar and Grill. It is owned by a local family and the granddaughter waited on us. My family (8 of us) ordered chicken fried steak, hamburgers, club sandwiches, and catfish. All entrees were very reasonably priced as well as delicious. If you are interested in history, Hearne (just outside of Bryan) is worth a day trip.
 
On top of that, I got a Nolan Ryan signed baseball to add to my baseball collection. It was a wonderful day!
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Wiseowl 9.1 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 9:02am  
LoveLife :
Thanks for the report. We often look for day trip places to go and this sounds good. We especially like unusual museums in small towns.
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LoveLife 11.2 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 9:06am  
Wiseowl :
And it is only 2 hours from Kingwood!
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LoveLife 11.2 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 9:31am  
Buffaloglenn :
 
Thanks for the tips.
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Ticagro 8.7 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 10:50am  
On top of that, I got a Nolan Ryan signed baseball to add to my baseball collection. It was a wonderful day!
 
LoveLife : Your mention of Nolan Ryan brings back a great memory for me. I'm a huge N.Y. Mets fan, and Nolan pitched for them when they won the World Series in 1969. Back then he could throw a ball through a brick wall, problem was he often couldn't hit the brick wall. He was as wild as they come. They eventually traded him to the California Angels for a once good but by then washed up 3B named Jim Fregosi, a trade that is now legendary in Mets fans circles, and not in a good way.
 
On his way out of NY, Nolan let it be known that to him, as the song says, happiness was NYC in his rear view mirror. He said it not in a nasty way, he just wasn't shy about letting folks know that NYC wasn't his cup of tea.
 
Fast forward to 1986 and the Mets won the World Series again. My then wife and I were all pumped up about this and we decided to go to Mets 1987 spring training in Port St. Lucie to get out of the cold NY weather for a few days and to see our Mets. Well, we're walking around the training facility, which in those days you were free to roam wherever, and we go wandering off to find a rest room for her. We're in the middle of some back fields area fields with no one on them, and we turn a corner around a building and there all alone on the grass is a guy in an Astros uniform (the Mets were playing the Astros that day in training camp). I look over and say to my wife louder than I meant to "HEY! THAT'S NOLAN RYAN!!!!" He looks over and laughs as he was already getting up and walks over to us, shakes our hands and says "Yeah, I'm Nolan Ryan. Nice to meet you, where are y'all from?" I tell him we're from Long Island in NY, and he says "I was glad to leave there, have a good time today." and walks away.
 
One of those out of the blue almost bizarre encounters that you never expect. He was very nice and polite. I never thought that my wife having to use the restroom would lead me to meet Nolan Ryan. Go figure. Emoticon
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TEXASGIRLMAMMA Top Forum Contributor13.1 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 10:58am  
Hearne POW Camp I love reading about WW2 and recently learned that Hearne, TX had a POW camp for German and Japanese prisoners. Yesterday, my sons took me to the museum there for my birthday. We anticipated the small museum would only take a few minutes to view. Although the museum isn't huge it was bigger than we expected. The woman who worked there gave us a fun and interesting tour for an hour and a half tour explaining all the displayed items and included tales of life at the Hearne POW camp. The museum has many artifacts from the camp and WW2 in general. It was very interesting. After our tour, we had lunch at the Pony Express Bar and Grill. It is owned by a local family and the granddaughter waited on us. My family (8 of us) ordered chicken fried steak, hamburgers, club sandwiches, and catfish. All entrees were very reasonably priced as well as delicious. If you are interested in history, Hearne (just outside of Bryan) is worth a day trip. On top of that, I got a Nolan Ryan signed baseball to add to my baseball collection. It was a wonderful day!
 
LoveLife : That is so cool! Thanks for posting. We are up in that area often as we have property in the area. I had no idea there is a museum. We will go there next time we are in the area and check out the Pony Express Bar and Grill.
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LoveLife 11.2 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 11:51am  
Ticagro :
What an awesome memory! Thanks for sharing.
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LoveLife 11.2 yrs
~ 10 mos ago   Nov 2, '25 11:52am  
TEXASGIRLMAMMA :
If you like history, you'll have a great time.
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