Although Area 51 is trending, there’s a North Texas community fixing up its former galactic-sized past, including a forgotten “spaceship” of sorts. If you’ve long been interested in unidentified objects, this spaceship in Royse City is definitely a must-see. It’s located in Area 276.
On the outskirts of Rockwall County, by the roadside on Texas 276, sits the orange structure, large in stature and referred to as the spaceship. It’s been a part of Royce City for years, and as some things are wont to occur, it’s suffered a bit of disrepair, disregard, and disrespect. Dumping and graffiti were taking place here on the regular, until Gunderson Elkins and a friend chose to make it a restoration project.
Photo: Instagram/2001frontier
“Every time I passed it, it broke my heart to see it in such bad shape,” the Quinlan resident told nbcdfw.com. He and his friend, Chris Shelton, made the decision to bring the spaceship back to its former glory. The process of bringing it back to life took around five hours of hard work.
Its past isn’t entirely a mystery. Elkins explained to nbcdfw.com that “During the 60s or 70s they were called Futuro Homes. I think there are 50 or so of them left in America.” Area residents of all ages have driven by or at least heard of the spaceship, the younger ones having come up with myths and legends as to why it exists in this part of Texas. One 8-year-old resident expressed her opinion that it simply crashed in the middle of nowhere. Her 10-year-old brother was curious if there was really an alien inside the bizarre-looking structure.
Photo: Instagram/keyleeamos
With respect to their care for this Royce City, Texas roadside oddity, Elkins and Shelton are happy with the end result. They hope that people passing through will grow to appreciate the structure to the same degree they do. A Futuro home, by the way, is a plastic, prefab, transportable vacation dwelling that was constructed to adapt to any terrain or climate. Their glory days were the 1960s and ’70s, but now only a few are scattered across the world, one on an Australian beach, another on a mountainside in Russia, and of course, one right here in the Lone Star State. Get yourself a glimpse of the one in Royce City and you won’t regret it. It’s like slipping back to a time when optimism and innocence made the world go ‘round.
