This Guide contains all you need to know if you're spending time in Huntsville, provided you're spending it on the right side of the prison bars...
Pardon my slight cynicism. I lived in Hunts-Hell for the first 18 years of my life. It's a really great place to go through at 60mph, but not to live for 18+ years. Anyway, I'll hit on its highlights in this little web page. Since I no longer live there, this page will eventually go the way of the Dodo bird. I hope this page offers not only the low points of the community, but also the high points.
I do not live in Huntsville any more. Most of the information here is now dated 5 years or more. Whenever I visit my friends still in East Texas, I try to update the site with new information, but that's increasingly rare.
I have no clue how you find out information about people in the prisons in Huntsville. You might try contacting the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
For you tourists, check out the new house on Ave. N at 19th or so (I'm not exactly sure of the address. Turn right off of Sam Houston into the residential area caddycorner to the HNB building (Now Region VI!), then go a few blocks, past City Hall, and turn left on N. At the end of that black on the left, there's a house made by Dan Phillips, a local miracle-working furniture-refinisher (The Phoenix Workshop). The entire house is made from donated and recycled materials. It's truley unique and very cool. You can look for my signature on the pantry door--my family donated some hickory nuts he used around the outside. The manager of Bookland will live there when it's finished.
Never
lived in a hotel in H-ville. *shrug* Don't expect too much
We now
have a La Quinta, and are soon to have a Best WEstern I think, so that
should be pretty standard.
If you're moving into the University area, beware Russelville. Much of the rent houses near SHSU are owned and 'operated' by Russel, who has a nice long list of various enemies in town for his below-average landlording. On the good side, he's a dedicated tree-hugger (keeps property values high), and owns a company that makes bad 'educational' videos for public schools (filmed slide-shows with dialog).
Well, there's Westhill Mall, Walmart, and Hastings off I-45
Also, for Antiques, there's the town square. I recommend Bluebonnet Antiques (close to King's Candy) for a place to start
One Music Square in the town square, is a great place to get instruments and connect with other musicians in Huntsville. They keep me supplied with Jew's Harps.
The Ear Doctor is a Huntsville landmark. If you need some sweet sounds on vinyl, check this place out.
Hastings is the only real trade-book store in town. They also have much cheaper video rentals than BlockBuster.
BookLand/Sam Houston Bookstore Great people run this store. I highly recommend using it above the racist folks over at Kampus Korner.
Well, there's SHSU's cinema, and then there's Cinema-X over by West Hill Mall. Everyone hates the owner, but he has a monopoly. OTOH, it is cheap, $2 before 6PM, $4 after.
Yep, we've got Sam Houston. The guy who defeated Santa-Anna and won Texas. We've got his body, a really big statue of him, and his houses. When you're looking at the statue, please remember the percentage of the community of Huntsville that is still on a community tap for water, and think about how much the statue cost. I think our local paper, The Huntsville Item, said it best in the Sept.9th, 1994 paper (vol 145 no. 218):
By PAUL STURROCK The Huntsville Item "Everything's coming together for the Oct. 22 dedication of the Gen. Sam Houston statue as preparations for moving the statue and the subse- quent erection task draw near. City Manager Gene Piper was at the statue site Friday morn- ing to over see the insertion of two, 24-inch-wide I-beams, each about 30 feet long, into the stat- ue pedestal....."
Our own little local newspaper. Please correct the grammar and return it to them, so that they can correct it and try for a passing grade. :)
OK, I admit, there's more-- we can't forget the huge statue of Sam Houston on I-45, or the paint-job downtown (yes, we know it looks tacky, no, I don't think they meant to have the VolksWagon logo emblazoned on the Courthouse).
We do have an almost decent local music scene, check by the reall small health-food/herb/espresso shop on the north part of the square.
Our Library is under-funded and incredibly hard to find, so don't worry.
We do have a suprisingly active art community (run, now!) and a community theater group, look around downtown for current events (usually none except during the summer)
Possibly the best part of Huntsville is HEAP, Huntsville Enrichment Activities Program, a set of various fun things done during the summer by volunteers and low-paid folks for children. There's usually swimming lessons, various sports, crafts, some learning-type stuff, and even a theatrical production.
Summer of 1997, a great issue came to fruition. Whether the city should have an official S.O.B. was up for a vote. You think I'm joking. It stands for "Sexually Oriented Business", and is effectively a zoning law to get one business out of the town. (Rubber Ducky is the name of the poor business). We didn't enact a retro-active zoning law to get rid of a car dealership with its security lights and noise backing up against a residential neighborhood, and this S.O.B. bill is taking precedence over getting recycling programs in place. In desperation (after realizing that the law would pass) the owner of the Rubber Ducky went to a City Council meeting, bringing some of his merchandise. The Item didn't approve:
Darts to those who turned last Tuesday night's Huntsville City Council meeting on a proposed ordinance to regulate sexually oriented businesses into a free for all and a forum to embarass elected officials. These people used the time allotted them to make sexually explicit and personal remarks and jibes at the mayor and the council, some without offering any reasonable arguments to chal- lenge the content of the ordinance. There ARE legitimate and appropriate arguments that could have and have been raised to this draft of the ordniance. The misuse of the time by a few others who apparently wished only to embarrass the council actually did more to bolster the case for passage of such a law.
Updating this, our City Council discovered that it was illegal to do retro-active effecting (really?!). Nevertheless, the law still passed. In other words, the local city gov't is supporting a monopoly for Rubber Ducky; any other S.O.B. will have to spend extreme amounts to get water/sewer/roads/electricity out to the few sites in the city that are not zoned. What's even funnier is that the county is also considering this zoning.