Navasota Exit SPUR-515 / TX-105 East (Navasota, Texas)

Street View, 2016. I thought I had photos for this sort of thing but I didn't. I previously covered one of Navasota's main exits previously on this blog and mentions that it was usually the "start of something fun". Unless we were going to Houston, the main star of the show was State Texas Highway 105 East. For years, it would be something like a road trip to Baton Rouge or Florida, or even in later years something a bit closer to home, like the Renaissance Festival. (We'll get to those stories—Conroe, Baton Rouge, Florida, Renaissance Festival, etc. another day.)

Once again we'll be deriving a lot of this information from the Carbon-izer page on Navasota as it currently stands and cover, roughly, from Dove Crossing Lane to Durden Street. Starting from the north and going down south there's La Casita Mexican Food Restaurant (9416 N. Hwy. 6 Loop), Navasota Inn (9460 Highway 6 Loop, sometime between late 2016 and early 2017, this former Super 8 changed names to its current incarnation. I can't find much information on it.), a demolished site that appears to be another motel, The Western Steakhouse & Dancehall (9524 N. Hwy. 6 Loop South; in the early 2020s they added an RV park behind it), Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses (9812 N. Hwy. 6 Loop), a CenturyLink facility (9852 N. Hwy. 6 Loop), T & S RV and Sport (9920 N Hwy 6 Loop, built in the late 2010s), First Hispanic Baptist Church (9970 Hwy 6, this is about where the exit lane is), WCTractor Navasota (10044 Hwy. 6), and finally, Circle T at 10200 Highway 6. Circle T replaced the 1996-built Circle H (no relation), which the gas station chronology I remember being Texaco originally, then a Diamond Shamrock in the early 2000s, then Valero by the mid-2000s, then back to Texaco again, before being demolished in 2019 for "Circle T", a new self-branded truck stop, which opened September 2020.

On the east side (going southbound), there's First National Bank Of Anderson (9501 N. Hwy 6 Loop, built in the late 2000s), MidSouth Electric Co-op (9409 N. Hwy. 6 Loop, built around 2011 with an expansion done in the early 2020s), Christ Our Light Catholic Church (9677 N. Hwy. 6 Loop, one of the few buildings here that was here back in the 1990s), United Ag & Turf (9819 Hwy. 6), Loop Self-Storage (9905 Hwy. 6), 9965 Highway 6 (former Elliott Team Ford, now just a service area), Elliott Team Ford (10059 N. Hwy. 6 Loop, their new location built circa 2023), and finally Hi-Ho. Hi-Ho is a Shell station that originally had the address of 1831 South Loop 6 but changed to 1921 Texas 105. Hi-Ho was there since 1994 but repaved and rebuilt its Shell gas canopy around 2008-2009, and then did a big expansion around 2017 (truck fueling and a store expansion) to compete with the new Stripes across the street.

Now we get to 105 itself. For years, Hi-Ho was it, that was the main sign of civilization as you went through the woods towards Plantersville (which didn't even have a stoplight until 2006). The Sunoco across the street (1930 TX-105) was built as Stripes #2492 and opened here in April 2016 with Laredo Taco Company inside. By June 2021 it had been rebranded as 7-Eleven. That wasn't all. I was somewhat shocked and saddened to see development creep along SH-105 East, noting both a Jack in the Box (2010 Highway 105 E.) opened in December 2022 and Chicken Express (1954 Highway 105 East) which had opened one month earlier (these were connected to 7-Eleven's parking lot). A Jack in the Box? In Navasota?! That was surprising, given the relatively recent arrival of Burger King and the flakiness of those two chains anyway...