Everything about this picture says Texas: the Collin Street Bakery sign, marking a famed Texas bakery; the Texas flags; the HEB grocery store; the pickup truck driving by; the onion domes off in the distance. Onion domes?

First a little background. On April 24, 2014, Jay and I drove south on I-45, the main road from Dallas to Houston. About 50 miles south of Dallas is Corsicana, seat of Navarro County, and home of the Collin Street Bakery. I’ve been eating its fruitcakes on and off for years, mostly by mail order, but in 1996 (I think) I passed through town and visited the bakery store.

As the web site notes: “The DeLuxe Texas Fruitcake or Pecan Cake you order today is still baked true to the old-world recipe brought to Corsicana, Texas from Wiesbaden, Germany in 1896 by master baker Gus Weidmann. He and his partner, Tom McElwee, built a lively business in turn-of-the-century Corsicana which included an elegant hotel on the top floor of the bakery.”

The hotel is gone, but you can still buy baked goods at the bakery store, including the signature fruitcake. We bought one to take to our mother, plus some smaller items for more immediate snacking. From the parking lot, we noticed those nearby onion domes, and being curious about onion domes in small-town Texas, we went over for a look. After all, how often do you see Moorish Revival buildings in small-town Texas? Probably more often than I’d think, but anywhere there one was.

It’s the Temple Beth-El, a former synagogue on 15th St. in Corsicana.  A shot from across the street is here; it’s a handsome building.

Like the Collin Street Bakery, Temple Beth-El too dates from the late 19th century. The Jewish community of Corsicana isn’t what it used to be – they probably went to Dallas, like everyone else – so in more recent years, the building’s been a community center overseen by the Navarro County Historical Society.

Now fully in a look-see mood, Jay and I went over to the Navarro County Courthouse grounds. Navarro himself was there. A statue of Jose Antonio Navarro, that is.

The Smithsonian tells us that “the sculpture was commissioned by the Texas Centennial Commission to honor Jose Antonio Navarro (1795-1871), a native Texan lawyer, merchant, and rancher who founded Navarro County and co-created the Republic of Texas. Navarro named the County seat Corsicana after his father’s birthplace, Corsica. While on an expedition to Sante Fe, Navarro was captured by Mexican soldiers and given a life sentence for treason. He escaped in 1845 and upon his return to Texas was elected as a delegate to the Convention which approved the annexation of Texas and drafted the Constitution.”

Nearby Navarro stands “The Call to Arms,” a Confederate memorial. It’s a little unusual, not being a soldier standing at attention or the like.

The statue’s plaque says that it was erected in 1907 by the Navarro Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy “to commemorate the valor and heroism of our Confederate soldiers. It is not in the power of mortals to command success. The Confederate soldier did more – he deserved it.”

History’s written by the victors, indeed.