BryanCollege Station, texas. The history of the neighboring cities sitting within three hours of houston, san antonio, and dallas. In about five minutes, we take you inside the george h. W. Bush president ial library and museum for our first ever look at newly discovered film footage of george and barbara bush on their honeymoon. Following that, the final resting place of the 41st president and the first lady on the grounds of the library. In about 20 minutes, the history of the area as we travel to the brass yoes Valley Museum of history and later a trip to the campus of texas a m university for the story of a core of cadets, the student military organization dating to 1876. We begin our special feature with the mayors of bryan and College Station as they talk about the history and special relationship between the two cities. One of the wonder fingers about bryanCollege Station, you have two cities, one community. The university started in the 1870s. The city of bryan started a couple years before. Really right after the civil war. So theres what i railroad coming from houston that was marching its way here. Stopped in the town before the civil war and then after the civil war it continued on and bryan for the first few years after the civil war struggled to get itself created. But was able to do that. In 1876, the University Got its first six students. And the city of bryan was really getting going and the area you see around us today are still some of the first buildings that were being built at that time. 25 years ago this area was a ghost town. Because of the growth of the state and the growth of texas a m, its created growth and renewal within the city of bryan. Were only seven football fields away from the main campus of the university. The line between our two cities is blurred not just in how we Work Together but its geographically blurred, too. Texas a m, founded in 1876 as part of the moral act. One of the land grant institutions. And over time it grew. But it was five miles from the nearest town. Bryan. And nobody knew about a town called College Station except for the fact in 1938 when some a m professors and faculty and staff got together and said, you no he what . Lets create our own city. And so they were able to charter a city and were growing. But were growing somewhere between three to five and more percent every year which makes us the 16th Fastest Growing community in the country. And we have the greatest disparity of any city in the United States regarding the number of students to the number of nonstudent population. We have just under, just a hair under 60,000 students who are on this campus. A m is poised by 2025 to have 25,000 students just in the college of engineering which would make it one of if not the Largest College of engineering in the country. Agriculture. Just as its name implies, that first letter, a, right . Thats what it was all about. And while, yes, bryan is a different town, you can step from one town into the next. There is a tradeoff here. But its a compatible tradeoff because we both realize we have something to bring to the table that is for the good of all of our citizens. The histories of the city of bryan and texas a m began together. Theyve been interwoven together from the very beginning. And we continue to flourish into the future with our histories being intertwined. In 2019, the george h. W. Bush president ial library and museum received film footage of president and mrs. Bush on their honeymoon in georgia. Donated by the children of allen and nina emlan. This is the first time the footage has been seen by the public. So the bushs honeymoon, this is george and barbara bush. And this is emlan and her husband. And im guessing they share the camera back and forth together. But they were both on their honeymoon. Looks like somebody is trying to get perfume on somebody right now. But theres, you know, diving and im guessing this is maybe bocci ball. And theyre intently measuring how far the ball is away from the white ball. So im not sure exactly what the game is. But there is a lot of measuring. But its whats amazing is, you know, how young they both couples are. And, you know, president bush already served in the navy. Still, its like hes a young kid. Weve gotten a lot of material like this from people who say, hey, wow. We have film of president and mrs. Bush on their honeymoon. We have some great photographs of the funeral train coming through our town. So there is a lot of this type of material that weve gotten over the last year, year and a half and, like i said, they never believed that she had been at the same place and the bushs honeymooned at the same time. But the film is proof. You know, they and, of course, president bush was always very outgoing. So im sure they struck up a friendship pretty quickly and left the honeymoon and probably, you know, never corresponded or, you know, just kind of thing that happened. But its great to have. We have the film of president bush taking his first steps. I dont know that we have much film from the early part of their marriage or their honeymoon. And it was very nice of them to send it to us. Texas a m university is home to the george h. W. Bush president ial library and museum. Join us inside as we take a look at items from the familys personal collection as well as some objects from the president s memorial service. So the exhibit youre about to see is one we started to put together shortly after the president died. The people in bryanCollege Station were invested in the Funeral Service because it happened here and the train came up from houston here to College Station. They were proud of the fact that president was buried here. So there is a lot of that incorporated into the exhibit. And one of the first things you see here is the life size statue of sully, president bushs service dog. And ceremony here a couple months ago we installed sully and actually the real live sully came to the ceremony. That dog is now walter reed. And the real iconic photo in the exhibit is of sully in front of president bushs casket. So president bush got sully in june of 2018 and he served president bush for about six months until the president s death in november, november 30th of 2018. So we have a picture of him as a puppy and then with president bush. He did help president bush with every day tasks. Added a little quality to his last months of his life. And then the memorial exhibit itself, we have the flag that flew at halfstaff over the white house. And then we also have the flag that flew over the capitol. One of my favorite items in this exhibit is the ships wheel that was built by the crew of the uss george h. W. Bush. It will be the last of its class aircraft carriers but the crew built it and presented it here in june of, i believe, 2019, i believe. And they created it themselves. We had all the sailors of the year from the ship here. We bring them in once a year, the sailors of the year. They come to the library and do a service project. And then the cases have the shells that were used for the 21gun salute at the air force base in houston which is where the body arrives rifd hed from washington, d. C. We have the guest book from blair house which is on the page that Angela Merkel signed and then we have the condolence book which turned to barack and Michelle Obama and then also the program and from the service and we have the u. S. Senate condolence book which is turned to Mitch Mcconnells signature. We have a photo montage throughout his life. Of course, the early life, they were married young. He was just still in the navy when they got married. And so we have a montage of photos from their life, from his career here at the library. And some photos from tomball, texas, as the up 4141 traveled from houston up to the library and carried the body with it and a section of the Railroad Track that was cut out by u. P. But that is the section that the train actually went over. And then one of my favorite cartoons, this is one of the series of two and when mrs. Bush died, there was a cartoon of mrs. Bush going to heaven and being greeted by her daughter. And when president bush died about six or eight months later, marshall ramsey, cartoonist from jackson, mississippi, did cartoon of president bush meeting robin and mrs. Bush in heaven. And then the drum light from the train, president bush loved trains and railroad travel and early in the planning process for his funeral, he wanted to be brought from houston to College Station, his final resting place here at the library, in a train. And so the drum light from the train and then u. P. Used some of the Heritage Fleet to bring the family up and then they had a car especially designed for the casket and then they had created the u. P. 4141 for an exhibit that we did here on american railroads more than 10 years ago. And that rail car, that u. P. 4141 locomotive was used to pull the train and it will be coming here sometime in the next year, year and a half and it will be outside of the library. So were really looking forward to that. And then the u. S. Postal service issued a stamp in june of 2019, a forever stamp with the president s portrait on it. And unveiled here in the ceremony in College Station. The president picked the portrait out himself. President bush and mrs. Bush was so much a part of this place. From 1993 until the last years of their life, they were here all of the time. They did programming with us. President and mrs. Bush both. She did a Literacy Program for us every year and he was here for events all of the time. It was like their second home. And we want to remember them here. We got to enjoy their company for so long here in town. The cspan citys tour continues its look at bryan, College Station, with a look at the resting place of president bush, his wife barbara and their daughter robin. We all know that our grandmother loved taking pictures and we saw the scrap book she would keep of all of us, in the more recent years i didnt realize how much she kept from her entire life until i was starting research for my book and i was able to go down to College Station to my grandfathers library and they have the archives there. And my coauthor and i were like were here for a day and a half. So 8 00 a. M. , first day we walk in and mary finch who works at the library and said where do you want to start and she opens the door and it is millions of millions of scrap books and videos and oh, my gosh, we only have a day and a half. We started in our scrap books. So my grandmother kept scrap books from every part of their life together. While at the george h. W. Bush library, they showed us one of the many scrap books containing mementos from their life together. So were here in the Research Room and well take a look at about 120, 130 scrap books that mrs. Bush began keeping shortly after she and president bush became engaged. She was an avid scrap booker and she kept pictures from their entire marriage. This is from 1944 and 45, i believe, and mrs. Bushs granddaughter was doing a book on the president and mrs. Bush, kind of their love story and she was using scrap books as a resource for that book. And one of the things that she found, because it was sitting inside of this envelope, we hadnt found it before, is what we think of a scrap book from the first thanksgiving and this is the wish bone and she has the guests that were there. And what is kind of funny is he even has the one guest who couldnt come because he got sick. But this is kind of stuff she kept. Pictures of him, the baseball scorecards. And she annotated it all in her own handwriting. She was so much in love with him that she wanted to document their life together, the children, the grandchildren, as time went on and at some point she stopped the scrapbooks but then she started to send us a digital camera and would send us digital photos and she would send us all of the backup with the photos so they werent in the scrap books but if she was at a dinner she take pictures and then send us the invitation, and the program and the menu from the dinner. But not in the scrapbook. At some point i think someone said that from an archival standpoint, the pictures an the scrap books probably wasnt the greatest idea because once theyre glued in, it is hard to get them out for preservation purposes. But theyre a great resource. And like i said, one of the reasons that we did the museum about 12 years ago is because we discovered all of this great, these great artifacts and in these scrapbooks and we said we have to use them. And i told mrs. Bush, thank you for the scrap books. Were going to put this stuff in the museum. So as you walk through the museum, a lot of photos and stories are from her scrapbooks so shes a big part of the museum also. We continue our look at the brazo Valley Museum of national history. This museum has been in our community for almost 60 years. And its really an important part of the community because we highlight the local natural history, local cultural history and even some of the local science, education. We do a lot of partnerships with texas a m university. We have exhibits that are here longterm and shortterm. We do lots of childrens education and we have some live animals. So id like to show you a few things about our museum that we are so proud of. If youll look over this direction, youll see a mural that we are incredibly proud of. It was done by a nationally recognized artist, emma stark. Painted onsite. It has been here since about 1993, 1995. And it is the only place where you could see the brazos valley as it was 12,000 years ago. And realize that some of the animals that are portrayed in the mural were the predecessors of our modern species. So 12,000 years ago we had lions, tigers, and bears in the brazos valley. And so thats something that a lot of our visitors really enjoy looking at the 50 different species that are portrayed in the mural. And if you look hard enough you could see the early peoples that lived lear during that time. So one of the things in our collection is our ice age maammammal collection. And this that we have on display were found on the brazos river and there is a long history that we have celebrating this with an early museum that was located at texas a m university. One of the other things that we have over here that pertains to ice age is our reproduction of a glift odon from the modern day armadillo. One of the things that is fascinating about our community is although the city of bryan was our Current County seat right now, the town of boonville was the first county city before the city of bryan. But when the railroad came through, the city of bryan really flourished and the city of boonville eventually died out. One of the things that were proud to have is some of the other nall surveying equipment that was used to actually survey the town of boonville. And so here you could see the origin original compass used to map the town and some of the materials that they used when theyre putting their lines and things like that. And Hiram Hanover was a very important figure in all of this because he was the original surveyor for the town. Cotton farming was really important in this area in the 19th century. A lot of immigrants, especially italians who came to texas ended up, they didnt have a lot of funds so they ended up buying land along the river, the river bottoms. But it turns out that that land was really great for cotton farming and pecan farming. And we still have a lot of cotton farming around this area today. I mean, the temperature and the way the land is along the brazos river was really very good for that sort of thing. We did have, because we had cotton farming, so there was also slavery in texas in the area. In this particular bail is one is an early bail and it shows how they put these bales together. Over here, this is actually a hook scale and a hoisting beam so they could weigh the cotton. This is just a simple cotton gin and lint separator. And this was used in the 19th century as well. And, of course, this is a different kind of bale. They tried this doing a round bale but it didnt catch on. Probably because it didnt hold together as well as some of the other ways of baling the cotton. Although we only have a couple of pieces, we are very proud to be able to display a couple of pieces of santa ana silver that was apparently acquired during the battle of san jacinto. And so Texas History is very important to us in this museum. And i really feel that thats part of what we as museums do, we preserve and protect our local heritage for generations to come. Our look at bryan and College Station texas, concluded with a visit to the sanders corp senor to hear about the texas a m center corp of cadets. Texas a m and the corp cadets came into existence at the same time. And a lot of things that go on here, in fact all of the big traditions here at texas a m started with the corp cadets. Well, howdy and welcome to texas a m university and the corp cadets. My name is colonel byron stechbs. This is designed to provide visitors to texas a m what the corp is all about and explains its history and the traditions here in aggieland. It was opened on october 4th, 1876 but they didnt have the student population that day to actually start classes. So on october 6th, 1876, two days later they opened the doors from 40 students and from that point to today where we are not only the Largest University in the state of texas but we started the year here as the Largest University in the United States. We have approximately 60,000 members of students here on campus of which 2300 are members of the corp cadets. For the next 24 years a m had to struggle to maintain a university here in College Station and on the brazos. And it wasnt until Lawrence Sullivan ross, a former governor of the state of texas, came here in 1890 that the university took off. At that point his reputation