The Grove goes on the auction block

THE GROVE, Texas (KXAN) - Eighty-two year-old Moody Anderson stands in the middle of The Grove, Texas , the town he owns just north of Fort Hood , chatting with auctioneer Robb Burley.

"Have you ever seen one of the rasps made into a snake?" Anderson asks a visitor.

Burley picks up the story, fingering a one-time metal rasp, now become a snake: "This is what happens when a blacksmith gets bored. He took that thing and hammered it over in two on either side and turned it into a folk art rattlesnake."

"I've seen a snake like that go for $100 at auction," said Anderson, "but I wouldn't give two bucks for it."

Of course, that is what Anderson is all about: Buy low and sell high. That's what he's been doing for fifty years or better, collecting all manner of what he calls antique "junk." Much of it, he leases to film companies making movies in the central Texas area. Most of it just sits around in the "Country Life Museum" that stands as the crown jewel of The Grove, the historic little town Anderson bought back in 1972. There's also a post office, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a doctor's office, a store and a Sheriff's office. All of it and everything in it will be sold at auction Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 23, 24 and 25.

"The way we're doing it is, we're going to start the auction Friday; we're going to sell the contents," said Burley who operates the Burley Auction Gallery from New Braunfels, Texas. "And Saturday at noon, no matter where we're at in the auction, we're going to stop the auction; we're going to offer the property for sale at auction and it's all going to sell as one lump. We don't want to split it up because, you know, Moody got it this way in one lump; we want to keep it all together. We're hoping somebody is going to come in and buy it and do something with it, turn it into a restaurant or, you know, something to give some respect to the town."

"I had a stroke about two years ago," said Anderson. "Now I'm 82 years old. My children don't care anything about it and my grandchildren don't care anything about it; so that's the reason I'm selling."

Anderson admits his wife is not much of a "junk" fan either.

"No, she doesn't care much for it," he laughed, but she puts up with me, so I appreciate that ."

"Whoever buys The Grove, will also buy the town's original life-giving water well, which, ironically, also resulted in its death. That's because back in the 1930s, the state was going to build a highway right through the middle of town and that would have meant paving over the well. The townsfolk would hear none of that. They protested loudly and as a result, the highway was built around the town. With traffic bypassing it, The Grove withered and died.

"I drank some water out of it about four years ago and my wife raised all kind of cain with me," Anderson laughed. "She said, 'Man, you ought to have that water tested, but I figured if it was good enough for old-timers to drink, it was good enough for me.'"

"Now an old-timer, himself, Moody Anderson is bowing out and he admits to some sadness. Asked how he copes with that, he shrugs.

"I don't know; I guess you have to put up with it," he replied. "I hope somebody buys it and restores it and keeps it like it is, but I can't tell somebody what to do if they buy it, so I don't know."

Turning a farm implement over in his hands, his voice trails off and his mind wanders to a time long ago, when The Grove bustled with life and all the "junk" in his town was new and bright. In the world beyond, potential bidders lay in wait, licking their chops and biding their time as an auction came rumbling down a road that bypassed a town.