Close to home / A longer memory
A rainy return to a town close to home—and woven into my childhood, my family, and the work of remembering.
Family roots Childhood field trips Downtown Clifton Olaf’s Keeping history alive
I went to Clifton, Texas, with a story in mind. The rain had other plans.
Living back beside Lake Whitney, I’m close enough now that Clifton is an easy trip. But my connection to it goes back much further than this visit. I attended part of elementary school there, and I have family buried there. My father, Perry Wayne Hollingsworth, has his memorial at Clifton Cemetery.
So when I write about Clifton, I’m writing about a place that belongs to my own history, too.
In first grade, my family moved down to the lake, and I went to Clifton Elementary. Years later, writing Aunt Barbara’s eulogy, I remembered Granny Perry picking us up from the bus stop on many days, taking us to the café, and feeding us. Aunt Barbara was never far away.
That was my introduction to this part of Texas: school, the bus stop, something to eat, and family nearby. Long before I was thinking about what made a town worth visiting, I was a child whose day unfolded here.
The historic places in this story were part of my childhood field trips, too. Before I thought about preservation, philanthropy, or what makes a town worth visiting, I knew them as places we went to as kids. They belong to my school memories as well as to the town’s history.
Going back as an adult adds another layer. Places you first encountered on a field trip become places you want to understand—and see another generation have the chance to visit. You have also lost some of the people who made the town familiar.
Clifton Cemetery is part of that geography for me. My father’s memorial and the family buried there give the town a permanence that a list of attractions can’t quite explain. There are places you visit because you’re curious, and places you keep returning to because people you love are there.
This time it rained, and I didn’t take photographs. Apparently, UNSUPERVISED* also applies to the weather. This story brings together earlier photographs from my family collection and credited public photographs of Clifton.
But I can still tell you why the town matters to me—and why it deserves your attention even if you don’t have a first-grade classroom or a family grave connecting you to it.
Clifton sits in Bosque County, northwest of Waco. Its visitor bureau presents it as the Norwegian Capital of Texas, with historic churches in the surrounding countryside and a downtown that includes locally owned shops, the Cliftex Theatre, and murals in Art Alley.3
That combination makes a useful starting point for thinking about the town: history, commerce, and creative work occupying the same place. You can come for an afternoon, but there is enough here to warrant more than a quick photograph and a check mark.
I’m interested in towns that give you reasons to pay attention. Clifton offers several.
A downtown visit ought to leave room for a meal. Olaf’s Restaurant and Bar, at 215 West Third Street, gives readers another reason to spend some time in town. The restaurant is brought to you by 3R Farms, a locally owned Clifton operation raising Wagyu/Angus cross and Black Angus cattle. Its own account of the food emphasizes preparation in-house and fresh local ingredients, with flatbreads, salads, soups, chicken, salmon, and crab cakes among the offerings.5
There is a full bar, too, and a Sunday brunch menu. Check the current menu and the restaurant’s hours and reservation link as you plan. Dinner downtown and a movie at the Cliftex make a sensible pairing; brunch gives you another way to build a visit around something besides the drive. A town’s cultural life includes what happens around its tables as well as what hangs on its walls.
The Bosque Arts Center has occupied the remaining building of historic Clifton Lutheran College since its founding in 1981. Today it supports visual and performing arts, educational programs, and community activities. Its branches include the Tin Building Theatre, Art Council, Photography Guild, Art Club, and Auxiliary.1
It would be easy to treat that as a list of amenities. I think it says something more interesting about local ambition.
An old college building became a place where people could keep making things, learning things, and gathering. That required somebody to see a future in it—and other people to help make that future possible.
For all the years I’ve spent in fundraising, that is still the part that interests me most: the distance between “somebody ought to do something” and a building with the lights on.
The Arts Center explains that membership dues help support maintenance and operations, alongside individual and corporate gifts, an endowment, and its annual Big Event fundraiser.1 Behind the exhibitions and performances is the less photogenic work of keeping an institution going.
A beautiful building still has bills. Community pride becomes more useful when it helps pay them.
The Bosque Museum’s story begins with Jacob Olson, an immigrant whose collection became the foundation of the institution. In 1924, he gave it to Clifton Lutheran College with conditions: it was to be housed in a fireproof building and never leave Bosque County. After the college merged with Texas Lutheran College, local organizers formed a nonprofit in 1954; a museum building opened in 1957.2
That stipulation about staying in the county is worth lingering over. A community’s history can scatter remarkably easily. Papers disappear. Objects change hands. The people who know what something means are eventually no longer around to explain it.
Olson’s gift carried an obligation to keep the collection near the place it helped explain. The museum’s work continues that responsibility.
That is a kind of philanthropy I wish we talked about more often: making sure a place can still tell its own story.
The Joseph Olson Log Cabin gives that story a front door. Built by Joseph Olson in 1866, it was the childhood home of his son Jacob, whose collection helped establish the Bosque Museum. The cabin was moved to the museum grounds in 1985, where its walls and interior were preserved and restored. A protective cover was added in 2015.6
I came here on field trips as a kid. That changes the way I write about the cabin now: it is part of the history I was introduced to while growing up, close to my own family’s story. Family history begins in ordinary rooms. Keeping one standing gives another child a chance to encounter a life that came before theirs.
Downtown’s Cliftex has been in business since 1916. According to the theatre’s history, it began as the Queen Theatre and later became Cliftex Talkies as the film industry changed.4
There is something pleasing about that name change. Even the historic places had to keep up with the new technology. At one point, talking pictures were the disruptive innovation.
The building is an invitation to think about all the ordinary evenings a town accumulates: a film, a companion, a ticket, a few hours together. Those occasions rarely make the history books. They help make a place feel like home anyway.
This trip didn’t produce the photographs I had hoped to bring home. It gave me a reason to put a familiar place on these pages and look at it with a little more attention.
The next visit deserves time for the Bosque Arts Center, the Bosque Museum, the Cliftex Theatre, a meal at Olaf’s, and a look around downtown. Readers planning their own trip can use the guide below and check current opening hours and programs before heading out.
And if you find something you want to see survive, do something practical about it. Buy a ticket. Become a member. Make a gift. Spend money with a local business.
The places that make a town worth visiting need people who keep showing up. In Clifton, that idea is personal. A school I attended, childhood field trips, family memories, and my father’s memorial are part of the same landscape as the galleries and the theatre.
Next time, I’d like a few photographs of my own. I’ll put in a request with the weather department. Its supervision appears to be about as effective as mine.
Photographs from earlier visits and public collections accompany this story. Source credits and reuse terms appear with each image.
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