Zim’s of Strawn: A Roadside Original With Texas Grit

Zim’s of Strawn on the Bankhead Highway

Zim’s of Strawn sits north of town where State Highway 16 drifts past pecan trees and red dirt. A cluster of old brick buildings rises close to the shoulder, square and sure. Locals still call it Zim’s. Travelers once rolled in for fuel, food, ice, and a bed. Today the place stands like a stubborn landmark that refuses to forget what it was built to do.

A one-stop idea takes shape

In the 1920s, Marche “Zim” Zimicki, a former mine worker with a head full of plans, set out to build an all-in stop on the Bankhead Highway. The transcontinental route funneled traffic through small Texas towns, and Zim recognized the need for a complex that could handle almost anything a traveler might want. Brick by brick, he and family craftsmen raised a gas station, café, ice house, bottling works, workshops, and tourist courts. It was not a single building. It was a system.  

Bottles, ice, and a little defiance

Stories about Zim come with sharp edges. He dealt in cold drinks and kept his own well water for the bottling line. For a time he held both Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper franchises, and when pressure came to abandon the well, the tale goes that he chose to keep control of his water and leaned into Dr Pepper instead. The details live in community memory and family accounts, but they capture the man’s style. He built on his own terms.  

A day at Zim’s when the road ruled

Imagine the scene when the Bankhead was busy. Billboards promised food, fuel, ice, and rest ahead. Trucks rattled in for repairs while travelers bought a cold bottle and a sandwich. Dinner drifted out of the café, and the motor court filled one room at a time. On weekends, the upstairs space could swing. Zim’s was a machine built to turn traffic into community and make the highway feel like a neighbor.  

What remains on Highway 16

The brick fronts still stand on the west side of Highway 16, and the core layout is legible if you take your time. In recent years, the headquarters building stirred back to life as a Saturday farmers market and café. You could still feel the original logic of the place. People came for something simple and left with more than they expected.  

Momentum returns

A new chapter is moving from talk to plan. Wallace Ventures announced a restoration effort to relaunch Zim’s Retreat as a tourism hub, aiming to blend the site’s 100-year legacy with modern use. The project targets a 2025 opening and positions Zim’s to greet a rising stream of visitors across Palo Pinto County. As regional park plans progress and day-use access ramps up, traffic through this stretch should grow. Zim’s has always known what to do with traffic.  

The road beyond the road

The Bankhead Highway carried more than cars. It carried ideas about work, movement, and hospitality. Texas still holds long runs of the old route, with garages, diners, courts, and bridges that tell the story of how Americans learned to travel by road. Zim’s belongs to that family of places. It is a physical memory of when a highway could build a business, and a business could build part of a town.  

Why it matters now

Preservation is not only about saving walls. It is about saving the pattern those walls once supported. Zim’s shows the pattern clearly. Small towns keep their shape when places like this keep their purpose. If Zim’s can work again, it will not be nostalgia. It will be a local economy with a memory.

Plan your own look at the route with the Texas Time Travel guide to Strawn.

Continue exploring Jonny Goodday’s Texas stories and historic places.

Closing image

Stand across the highway near sunset. The bricks hold the day’s heat. A breeze moves the grass along the lot line. You can almost hear a bottle cap skip across the concrete and the low murmur of someone asking if you’re passing through or staying the night. Zim’s was built to say welcome. It still does.

Sources

• Texas Historical Commission. “Bankhead Highway.”
• Texas Time Travel. “Strawn tour directory entry for Zim’s.”
• Texas Highways. “Explore Vintage Texas on a Bankhead Highway Day Trip, ” Dec. 28, 2020.
• Jeff Clark. “Zim Zimicki’s Hard Work Fuels America’s Success, ” Texas Tabernacle blog, Nov. 26, 2013.
• Polish Texans. “The Polish People of Thurber, ” Sept. 8, 2007.
• San Angelo LIVE. “Zim’s Retreat Set for 2025 Relaunch as Tourism Hub, ” Oct. 8, 2024.
• Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Coverage on Palo Pinto Mountains State Park timelines, May 21, 2024 and June 5, 2025.
• Roadtrippers Magazine. “Driving Texas’ 100-year-old Bankhead Highway, ” Jan. 7, 2020.