When the king’s reign ends
As realities encroach, the town behind Texas Renaissance Festival faces change
TODD MISSION — At a city council meeting earlier this month in Todd Mission, council members discussed re-doing street signs, and Mayor George Coulam doodled.
Coulam, 82, otherwise known as “King George,” pushed to incorporate this stretch of woodsy land 37 years ago. He had one goal: Protecting the Texas Renaissance Festival he founded here eight years before that.
Houston’s growth attracted Coulam to the area, and he knew better than to leave his life’s work vulnerable to it. The result is a quirky city intimately tied to his creation and under his control. He didn’t want someone else writing the rules.
Now that city is entering a new phase. Coulam is planning for what will happen to his creations after he dies — he’s already built a mausoleum across from his house — and officials in Todd Mission, 50 miles northwest of downtown Houston, are grappling with coming development.
A four-lane tollway is being built on the edge of town, a change they expect to transform this rural city in the pines, which attracted creative types and those who preferred to be somewhere remote.
It’s a scenario repeating across greater Houston, as roadways expand and push farther out — in this case, with a Renaissance twist.
“The city wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the festival,” said City
Manager Neal Wendele. Renaissance lettering adorns city signs in Todd Mission. Festival sales tax and business license fees make up most of the $525,000 annual city budget.
Coulam remains a central figure, very much involved in festival operations. He has been the city’s only mayor.
But the municipality he formed is emerging from the festival’s shadow. Wendele was hired last year to fill the city manager position full time, and the city secretary this year stopped working at the festival.
“We’re working on separating things a little,” said Council Member Heather Moon-Whinnery, who owns a festival shop. “For the longest time, Todd Mission was just the Renaissance Festival.”
At that Oct. 10 council meeting, Coulam drew an angel and wore one of his collection of Renaissance Festival shirts. He sat in the small City Hall on land that his festival donated years ago. Traffic buzzed by on FM 1774, which runs through town and is also being expanded.
The city, with a municipal court, a three-member police force and a 38-member volunteer firefighting team, is a modest operation. There is no city water or sewer service. Residents help fill potholes. During festival season, council meetings are short; the October meeting adjourned within 30 minutes.
On weekdays, Wendele puts flags out front to try to catch the attention of passers-by, letting them know the city is there.
Next door, festival operations dwarf those of Todd Mission. Twenty full-time employees operate the nine-weekend affair through Dec. 1. Roughly 3,000 people work there seasonally, many living on a road nearby. A septic system runs on festival grounds.
At festival time, tens of thousands flock to the city, clogging roads and interfering with cell service. This typically quiet place, which claims just 146 year-round residents, is transformed into a bustling destination. Last year, 464,881 people attended the festival, according to staff. During this year’s first three weekends, 95,500 visited.
They enter a world unto itself, a place where, with costumed performers and rows of old-timey shops, people can find what Entertainment Director Jeffrey Baldwin calls “escapism at its best.” On Wednesday, Baldwin wore a button-down shirt. He planned to wear a Scottish kilt for All Hallows Eve that weekend. “Sir Jeff Baldwin,” his nameplate reads.
Baldwin, 57, has worked for the festival since he started as a face painter at age 16. It shaped his life. He met his wife Brandi there. They married there. For nearly 20 years, he lived in Todd Mission and served on city council for a time. He credits Coulam and his generosity for all that has happened in this rural stretch of land.
“He’s a genius,” Baldwin said. “He’s built a world of imagination here.”
Coulam, an unemployed artist, tried to run Renaissance festivals in Salt Lake City and Minnesota before arriving in Texas, where he bought 350 acres in the country. He liked the climate and landscape, not to mention the proximity to Houston’s large population.
The land, strip-mined, was remote. A “Mr. Todd” built a lumber mill along the railroad there a century ago, according to the state historical association. A group of Mormons arrived and turned the schoolhouse into a mission. Later, a developer built roads and platted the town.
“It was in the middle of nowhere,” Coulam said, “Absolutely.”
Coulam bought property as a buffer when he could. But he wanted more protection. He saw Disneyland surrounded by development in southern California. And he preferred not to get Grimes County permits.
An application to incorporate Todd Mission was filed July 9, 1982, county records show. Sixteen people, including Coulam, voted to start a city with him at the helm, keeping the name by which it was known.
With the new road coming, the city needed to be more than a festival extension. The council hired Wendele, who had a master’s degree in public service and administration. The city manager before him was the festival’s general manager.
Wendele, 40, wanted to help guide the coming growth. He first tried to ensure everything was in line with the law. There were city laws written by hand, a public works van that existed without a public works department.
Of the five-member council, Moon-Whinnery, 48, is the only one still working at the festival. As a kid, she ate tailgate breakfasts of roast beef pâté in the parking lot. Now she owns a festival photo studio called Whimsy’s Muse.
Moon-Whinnery bought her home in Todd Mission in 1996. This is her favorite time of year, when friends who travel among festivals nationwide return. Renfaire Drive, a road developed by Coulam and recently annexed by the city, is the heart of that community. Some call it “Toon Town.”
On a recent afternoon, festival musicians Jim Hancock and Owl Morrison played basketball at the end of Renfaire. Hancock was at a festival in Pennsylvania before this, and Morrison was at one in New York.
They’d known each other for years. Hancock, 60, known as “the burly minstrel,” helped Morrison, 52, get her first Renaissance festival job. She rents a trailer here; he a shack. “We really are a community that isn’t only in one place at one time,” Morrison said.
The street, with colorful mailboxes, is largely occupied by trailers. A sign outside one lot advertised an evening dance party. At another, a yard sale went on. These things were for them — the “rennies” — not outsiders.
Another group practiced juggling on two acres owned by 69year-old Rio Blue, a festival performer who bought the land from Coulam. This is the last festival of the year for most, and the biggest.
“It’s this wonderful gathering point,” said 34-year-old Sam Tynker, who performs in a family circus, “Clan Tynker,” explaining how one might live next to a whip cracker, or down the street from a blacksmith.
It was perhaps the polar opposite of the scene at Councilman Brett Bratcher’s company office a short drive away. That property was gated, with a “VOTE! Republican” sign out front. His business supplies coatings for oilfield equipment. A photo of President Donald Trump hung in the entryway.
Bratcher, 64, moved to Todd Mission around 25 years ago, sick of living in Houston. Some people here couldn’t stand Coulam, or the festival, he knew, but he wasn’t one of them. He shares two fence-lines with it.
Ocassionally smoke from festival campfires blows into his home. He and his wife try to leave town on the weekends. He’s never attended it, but he knows what the festival allows the city to afford.
The Texas Renaissance Festival, according to a spokesperson, owns more than 900 of the city’s roughly 2,000 acres. Coulam lives on 200, which he has focused on transforming into an arboretum that will open to the public after his death.
Though Coulam wants to be remembered for creating a place that inspires, his reputation is complicated. Two former employees sued the festival in recent years in federal court, alleging Coulam called one “cupcake” and tasked another with finding him dates. He denied the allegations and the suits were settled.
An afternoon visit with Coulam revealed some quirks: In his house, a bathroom with black fixtures, a blue ceiling painted with clouds, a desk covered with file folders. A red folder in the personal section is labeled “death.” Traveling with a reporter, he drove his truck 40 mph with the parking brake on.
Calling himself “semi-retired,” Coulam prefers that his role at the city not interfere with the goal of it all: his art, arboretum and festival. He trusts Wendele to take care of what’s needed while the metroplex pushes their way, just like he predicted.