The plans for F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library were announced in 1901, following substantial gifts to Baylor University from F. L. Carroll for the Chapel and Library and from G. W. Carroll for the Science Hall. While the Science Hall is separate from the Chapel and Library, the two buildings are linked in both style and historical significance. The cornerstones for both buildings were laid February 28, 1902, and their construction was a major landmark in Baylor history, lauded by the student newspaper as the moment when “Greater Baylor Begins.” Construction of F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library was completed in 1903. Period documentation describes the building’s original winding staircases, marble entryways, and seven marble pillars that supported a domed stained glass window. The building housed donated book collections. The dome on top of the building covered the chapel area which included an organ purchased by F. L. Carroll. In 1918, the collection of Dr. A. J. Armstrong’s Browning materials was donated to Baylor University and was housed in Carroll Chapel and Library.
On February 11, 1922 the F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library Building was damaged by a fire that destroyed much of the wooden interior. The Browning collection and many of the books were saved, as was the exterior of the building. Between 1922 and 1924 the building was reconstructed to house the University’s main library as well as several other smaller collections, including the Browning Collection, the Law School library, and the Texas Collection. The domed chapel was not reconstructed; in its place, a third floor was added. A basement was also added during this reconstruction. The quoin work from the original facade as well as some of the stone string course between the second and third floor are still intact. Throughout the years the building also housed the Strecker Museum, the J. B. Tidwell Bible Library, classrooms and offices for various academic departments, and temporary space for departments whose buildings were being remodeled.
After a 1992 hail storm damaged some of the windows, the University decided to remodel the building. The architectural work for the renovations was done by F&S Partners Incorporated from Dallas, Texas, and the contractor was Waco Construction, Incorporated. The landscape architect was J. Robert Anderson from Austin. In 1993 the renovations began, and in 1994 the building was once again fully functional, housing such entities as the Institute for Oral History, J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, the University Historian, and the Texas Collection. The building was rededicated on February 26, 1994.
]]>Waco native Vivienne Lucille Malone-Mayes possessed a sharp mind with a resilient spirit to match. In an age where few women, let alone women of color, went on to become prominent figures in higher education, Malone-Mayes made her mark as an influential mathematician and inspiration to countless Baylor students.
Born in 1932, Malone-Mayes grew up with the harsh realities of racial prejudice. She first became aware of segregation as a preschooler when she mistakenly drank water from a whites-only fountain at the Montgomery Ward store on Fourth and Austin. Fearing for her daughter, Mrs. Malone pushed her to the appropriate fountain and then proceeded to teach the young girl how to distinguish the words white and black. As Malone-Mayes grew older, she learned that she could only frequent certain recreational spaces in Waco and that she would be denied service at larger retailers in Dallas such as Neiman-Marcus. However, Malone-Mayes did not let bigotry define her.
Raised by two educators, Malone-Mayes was encouraged to avidly pursue learning, and she excelled throughout elementary and secondary school. Malone-Mayes entered Fisk University at age sixteen after graduating from A. J. Moore High School in 1948. Malone-Mayes earned both her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree within the next six years, switching from the pursuit of medicine to mathematics after meeting the influential Evelyn Boyd Granville. Granville was the second African American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics, and she served as an inspiration for Malone-Mayes. It was also during this time that Vivienne married her husband, James Mayes.
Despite Malone-Mayes’ two degrees and eight years combined teaching experience at Paul Quinn College and Bishop College where she chaired the math departments, the still racially segregated Baylor University refused to admit Malone-Mayes in 1961 for further graduate courses in mathematics. Never one to be held back from achieving her goals, Malone-Mayes applied to the University of Texas and completed her doctoral studies there. Today, Vivienne Malone-Mayes is recognized as the fifth African American woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in the field of mathematics.
By the time of her graduation, Baylor desegregated and hired Malone-Mayes as a full-time professor, making her the first African American faculty member at the university. Malone-Mayes dedicated over twenty-five years of service to Baylor. Students loved her and voted her as “Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year” in 1971.
Beyond working as a Baylor professor, Malone-Mayes belonged to a number of other mathematical organizations, often holding important positions. She was the director of the Texas section of the High School Lecture Program, director-at-large for the Texas section of the Mathematical Association of America, and a member of the board of directors in the National Association of Mathematics. Malone-Mayes also had the distinction of being the first African American elected to the executive committee of the Association of Women in Mathematics.
Additionally, Malone-Mayes actively involved herself in the Waco community. She made New Hope Baptist Church her home and acted as the church’s choir director for a time. She also served on several boards of directors, including: Goodwill Industries, Family Counseling and Children Services, and the Heart of Texas Region Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center.
Malone-Mayes was a trailblazer for African American women in higher education and had a heart to serve her local community.
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]]>In 1875, Professor Alexander James Moore of Paul Quinn College, concerned at the lack of quality education for African American children in Waco, began teaching small groups of young children out of his home. Though Reconstruction Legislature of 1870 eliminated segregation in schools throughout Texas, these laws were appealed by 1873, and most cities like Waco were left without provisions for African American education. Over time, Moore’s classes grew larger and larger, and it became clear that the school, now called the First District Negro School, needed to find some sort of official facility. In 1881, the classes moved to a small four-room frame building which had originally been a hospital at the corner of Clay Avenue and River Street. These classes became known as the Second District Negro School. In addition to being the first teacher, A. J. Moore served as the school’s first principal from 1881 to 1905. The inaugural graduating class in 1886 contained only five students. In the school’s almost one-hundred years of serving Waco’s children, more than 4,000 students graduated, many continuing on to successful careers.
School officials chose a new location for the school after the main building burned down in 1921. They completed construction on a brick building at 600 South First Street in 1923. This schoolhouse contained 35 classrooms, allowing the school to expand its education of Waco youth. At this time the school obtained the name A. J. Moore High, becoming the only school in the Waco system named for a person. The Waco Tribune-Herald noted that the community chose the name intentionally to honor the selfless legacy of Professor A. J. Moore.
From 1923 to 1952, the school housed kindergarten students through the twelfth grade. From 1952 until the school’s closure in 1971, it provided education for students in the seventh through twelfth grades only. The A. J. Moore High School Handbook, published in 1951, exhorts its students to take responsibility for their own futures, as well as for that of their community. It declares the school’s hopes to offer students a well-rounded education, providing them not only with knowledge, but also the means for achieving success in all areas of life. The handbook calls students to remain loyal to the principles of democracy, encouraging respect for the rights of all citizens.
Space increasingly became an issue as the school continued to grow. Discussions concerning the school’s dilemma noted in particular the poor location of the school, considering the noise coming from the train which ran through the school yard. The overcrowded classrooms only added to the school’s plight. Ultimately, the school closed in 1971, as a result of desegregation and urban renewal projects in Waco.
In 1997, A. J. Moore Academy was reborn in Waco as a magnet school. Proponents of this school hoped to carry on the traditions begun by Professor Moore in the nineteenth century, encouraging students to remain united. The charter school emphasized areas such as business, engineering, entrepreneurship, and technology in order to help students succeed in secondary education and the workplace. In order to combat budget shortfalls, the school board elected to consolidate A. J. Moore Academy with University High in 2012.
A. J. Moore High School was the first and arguably most successful effort for the provision of systematic and quality education for children of all races in Waco. Until Moore took it upon himself to begin teaching young children, Waco did not have any schools dedicated to the education of African American children. Today, the school remains an important hallmark of the Waco community, providing quality education for students of all races.
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]]>Throughout its history, Waco has been affected by a constant cycle of drought and flooding due to its prime location near several major rivers. The construction of Lake Waco Dam was one of the most successful efforts to address these issues, providing the city with flood protection and a stable water supply.
Many Wacoans, including Mayor H. F. Connally, opposed the construction of the original dam in the 1920s, preferring to rely upon the city’s artesian wells as a water supply. Though some saw the dam as a foolhardy and risky luxury, the city put the issue up to a vote in 1926 after the wells began to run dry. Voters approved the construction of the dam by a slim margin of just over one hundred votes. In 1929, Callahan Construction Company completed work on the dam on the Bosque River.
The small dam, though beneficial to Waco, proved to be insufficient to protect the city from severe flooding. After a record flood in 1936 submerged East Waco and displaced two thousand people, Congressman Bob Poage received authorization for a US Army Corps Engineering flood control study of Lake Waco. The results of the study in 1938 recommended an enlarged Lake Waco with a bigger, more modern dam.
However, the onset of World War II put the Lake Waco project on hold for some time. The construction of dams on Lake Whitney and Belton Lake took precedence in 1946, though the need for a larger water supply was becoming more apparent each year. Several Wacoans appealed to the federal government for funding, and in 1954, Congress authorized the construction of a new dam in order to lessen the flood threat to the city of Waco and provide more efficient water storage.
As the US Army Corps of Engineers began to design the new dam, Central Texas conditions worsened. The most severe drought of the twentieth century struck Texas in the 1950s. The period saw all but ten of Texas’ counties declared federal disaster areas, and in Waco, despite efforts to ration and conserve water, taps ran dry and factories slowed production. Additionally, the water supply in Lake Waco was hampered by the buildup of silt from farming up river.
A second disastrous flood hit the city in April 1957, reenergizing efforts to complete the dam. The Brazos River Authority and the city offered to provide a loan to the federal government in order to begin construction on the dam quickly. After some negotiations, President Eisenhower included one million dollars in his proposed budget for the construction of the new dam.
In the weeks following the dam’s completion in the fall of 1961, engineers detected a problem with disastrous implications. Cracks appeared in the eastern face of the dam and slowly began to spread. Soon, a portion of the east side fell sixteen feet, sliding downstream. The US Corps of Army Engineers quickly discovered the problem was a layer of compressed shale in the ground which the weight of the dam had pushed out. They modified and stabilized the dam, completely finishing construction in the spring of 1965.
Army engineers and the city of Waco agreed to raise the level of the lake seven feet in 2003 in order to provide a more secure source of water for Waco and surrounding municipalities. Waco civic leader Jack Kultgen described the dam as the “single biggest factor in the progress of Waco” in the twentieth century because it gave Waco an advantage over many other Central Texas cities. The Lake Waco Dam provides the city with a constant source of water, ensuring the city’s ability to grow in spite of weather conditions.
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]]>Ten weeks after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, Waco was chosen as the site for a military training camp. The United States initially lacked the military manpower needed to fight in the war and needed to rapidly increase the number enrolled in the armed forces. Cooperation between Waco businessmen and the federal government allowed construction to begin on a troop training complex on July 20, 1917. Spread out on 10,700 acres of cotton fields and blackland farms, the military camp cost five million dollars to construct.
The site was named for Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, a Medal of Honor recipient who served in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. Eighteen thousand troops arrived to begin their training in September of 1917. These National Guardsmen, primarily from Wisconsin and Michigan, boosted the Waco population, stimulating economic growth for the city. Though Camp MacArthur possessed the capacity to hold around forty-five thousand troops, no more than twenty-eight thousand resided at the Waco training compound.
The camp consisted of administration offices, a tent city, a base hospital, and a number of other military buildings. Loretta Johnston, a nurse at the hospital in 1918, described the base as “very pleasing to the eye” and the hospital as a “pleasant place for [the] sick and convalescent soldiers.” Johnston also wrote of a recreation hall in the hospital which housed parties and dances for the nurses and officers on weekends.
The troops from Wisconsin and Michigan formed the Thirty-Second Infantry Division of the National Guard. After receiving basic training in Waco, these troops joined the American Expeditionary Forces near Langres, France, on February 24, 1918, where they received more training and ultimately became a front line unit.
After the deployment of the Thirty-Second Infantry Division, Camp MacArthur became an infantry replacement and training camp, as well as an officer school. Recruits from Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and New Mexico arrived in Waco to receive their training until the camp became a demobilization center following the armistice of November 11, 1918.
The military center affected Waco in a number of ways. The population boost stimulated a period of economic prosperity which continued until the Great Depression. After the war’s conclusion, many soldiers returned to Waco. Even the annual fair held at the Texas Cotton Palace came to reflect the military presence in Waco. The Cotton Palace Exposition of 1917 catered heavily to soldiers, including exhibits such as a bullet-ridden German biplane. Additionally, the US Army’s insistence upon decreasing distractions for soldiers led to the closing of Waco’s red-light district known as “The Reservation.”
Camp MacArthur officially closed on March 7, 1919, and the land it formally encompassed was incorporated into the city of Waco. Portions of the materials from the camp were then used to construct a portion of the US-Mexican border; others were used to build houses in the Edgefield neighborhood in Waco.
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]]>Bridge Street holds an important legacy of connecting North, South, and East Waco, and serving as a center of community for the city’s many ethnic groups. Known as Main Street during Waco’s early days, this historic street earned its new name after the construction of the Waco Suspension Bridge around 1870. Over time, many of the wooden buildings lining Bridge Street became so dilapidated that the street earned the nickname Rat Row. A fire devastated the street in 1871, and businesses rebuilt using stone, thereby improving the image and stability of Bridge Street.
The majority of the African American community worked in businesses on Bridge Street during the nineteenth century. After the close of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, African Americans hired themselves out in Waco in positions according to the skills and experience they possessed. Most worked as laborers and servants, though many worked in positions such as farmers, schoolteachers, and carpenters.
Near the turn of the century, Bridge Street emerged as the center of the minority-owned business community and became a communal gathering point. According to the Waco city directory, African American-owned barbershops emerged on Bridge Street as early as 1877, and several Chinese laundries and a Hispanic grocery store opened in 1892. Over the next decade, the number of minority-owned businesses increased rapidly.
On the weekends, Bridge Street filled with families and citizens from all over Waco. Restaurants, taverns, hotels, and theaters offered entertainment and enjoyment, while doctors, dentists, grocers, tailors, and other business owners met the community’s other needs. Bridge Street also served as the center for several African American newspapers for Waco, including the Waco Messenger.
Tragedy struck Waco, and Bridge Street, in 1953. A tornado tore through downtown, taking one hundred and fourteen lives and destroying many businesses. Several buildings on Bridge Street collapsed, injuring or killing the people within. Businesses closed, leaving the lots vacant for several years. A few, such as the Mecca Drug Store, found the funds to rebuild. The citywide urban renewal project tore down the remaining buildings on Bridge Street in 1968, leaving only City Hall standing.Today, many lament the way in which urban renewal displaced Waco’s minorities through the destruction of Bridge Street. Though the buildings no longer stand, Bridge Street remains an important part of Waco’s history. Not only did it provide a place for Waco’s minorities to engage in commerce in the heart of downtown, but it served as a communal gathering place in which respite from prejudice and segregation could be found in the mid-twentieth century.
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]]>This important archaeological find containing the remains of twenty-five Columbian mammoths lies just on the outskirts of the city of Waco. Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin discovered the site in 1978 while hiking along a dry seasonal creek bed between the Brazos and Bosque rivers searching for fossils and arrowheads.
As Barron climbed up an incline in the riverbank, a piece of bone broke off in his hand. Recognizing the significance of his discovery, he brought the bone to geologists at the Strecker Museum at Baylor University.
Officials at the Strecker Museum initially were skeptical of the big find Barron and Bufkin claimed to have uncovered. Yet after traveling to the site, it became clear that the remains of several animals rested in the riverbank. Between 1978 and 1980, David Lintz from the Strecker Museum and George Naryshkin of the Baylor Geology Department, along with a team of volunteers, excavated five Columbian mammoths.
For many years following the discovery, a lack of funding prevented large-scale excavation. Intermittent grants from the Cooper Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Waco a “better or more desirable city in which to live,” allowed teams of volunteers to continue working at the site. Workers had uncovered a total of eleven mammoths when heavy rainfall flooded the site, shifting soil and exposing more animals. Another grant from the Cooper Foundation allowed for several protective measures for the site to be built, such as a dam to divert future floods, a tent to cover the entire site, and the hiring of a chief excavator and volunteer coordinator. By December of 1984, Baylor faculty, students, and volunteers had excavated fifteen mammoths.
Baylor geologists moved the remains of sixteen mammoths to the Strecker Museum in 1990 to preserve them from damage while excavation continued at the site. By this time, the Waco Mammoth Site was internationally known. Renowned anthropologist Dr. Gary Haynes visited the site several times, and in 1997, Calvin Smith, the director of the Strecker Museum from 1984 until 2003, presented a paper on the site at a geological convention in Beijing.
The cause of death for the mammoths initially stumped the scientific community. The bones did not appear to be disturbed by scavengers or predators. For many years, geologists thought that all twenty-five mammoths and the other animals found at the site died in a single flash flood thousands of years ago. Yet thesis research completed by a Baylor student on soil samples revealed that the mammoths died in three separate events. A flash flood trapped nineteen mammoths from a nursery herd and a camel sixty-five thousand years ago. Excavators uncovered a juvenile mammoth from this heard draped across a female’s tusks, indicating that she had been attempting to lift the young mammoth above the flood waters to safety. A second flood trapped a saber-toothed tiger and another unidentified animal. A third flood trapped a bull, a female, and a juvenile mammoth around fifteen thousand years after.
In 1996, Sam Jack McGlasson donated just under five acres of land to the city of Waco for the purpose of developing research, education, and tourist opportunities at the mammoth site. The city began development proposals for the site, and in 2006 these proposals included a plan to make the site a public park. Congressman Chet Edwards introduced legislation to make the site a national park, though this never came to fruition. However, on July 10, 2015, President Barack Obama designated the mammoth site a national monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906, declaring it to be “a rare opportunity” for research.
In 2009, the site containing the bones of a bull, a female, two juvenile mammoths, and the camel opened to the public. Exhibits displaying casts of the mammoths can also be found in the Mayborn Museum Complex at Baylor University. The attention the mammoths drew earned Waco standing in the international scientific community and increased tourism and commerce for the city. Most importantly, the mammoth discovery unlocked a fascinating part of Central Texas environmental history.
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]]>On May 11, 1953, a destructive force tore through Waco and forever altered the face of the city. The tornado injured 600 people, took 114 lives, and damaged hundreds of businesses. The chaotic aftermath of this deadly storm left an indelible mark upon the Waco community.
On the morning of May 11, the New Orleans Weather Bureau issued a tornado warning for West and Central Texas. Yet life in Waco continued at its normal pace. Some Wacoans placed stock in the old Waco Indian legend that claimed that the hills and bluffs surrounding the city kept it safe from tornados. Others, such as Baylor geologist emeritus O.T. Hayward, argued that Waco was situated atop an an uplift on the Balcones escarpment (or fault line) served to precipitate severe weather along the I-35 corridor, which roughly follows the escarpment. Still, few took heed of the storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service that day, as the weather was the same as it had been for days: warm and muggy.
The weather grew severe as the day progressed. Thunderstorms developed, and many downtown shoppers and businessmen rushed into buildings in order to take cover from the rain. Around 4 p.m. the sky suddenly darkened and hail the size of baseballs fell. It seemed to many as though night had fallen. As the storm worsened, some tried to contact family and loved ones, only to find the phone lines had gone dead.
Around 4:30, a tornado touched down southwest of Waco and tore through residential areas. At 4:36, it struck downtown Waco. The F-5 tornado cut a swath nearly one-third of a mile wide with winds up to 260 miles per hour. After tearing through downtown, it exited the city and continued northeast for several more miles.
Many of the buildings in downtown Waco were not built with such a severe storm in mind. Only buildings with steel-frame structures, such as the Amicable (ALICO) building and the Roosevelt Hotel, were able to withstand the severe winds. Others, such as the R. T. Dennis building, collapsed, killing thirty of the people within and injuring several more. The tornado destroyed 196 buildings, and damaged hundreds of others so badly that they were later torn down. Some, such as the Dr Pepper bottling plant, withstood smaller amounts of damage which the owners later repaired. Outside of downtown, the tornado demolished nearly six hundred homes in East Waco.
The aftermath of the storm was chaotic, and confusion and disorganization characterized initial rescue efforts. The destruction was massive, and the city was entirely unprepared to handle such a disaster. Survivors served as the first responders, and as personnel from James Connelly Air Force Base, local and state law enforcement, Baylor University students, and others joined the work, an organizational system developed. Members of the Red Cross, Salvation Army, National Guard, army, and air force also arrived to aid in the rescue efforts.
Though estimates vary, approximately $51 million of property damages occurred. The city received around $9 million in order to aid recovery, including federal assistance, a grant from the Red Cross, and private donations collected by local civic leaders. Yet even this relief could not counter the serious blow the tornado dealt to the downtown business community. Some areas of the city never fully recovered.
Although this catastrophe, recognized as the deadliest Texas tornado since 1900, devastated downtown, it also brought the Waco community together. Countless hours of volunteer efforts poured into the recovery of the city. The aftermath of the Waco tornado also contributed to the development of an efficient tornado warning system for the entire nation, and promoted greater communication amongst relief agencies to better deal with future disasters.
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]]>For over a century, the Hippodrome Theatre has stood as a downtown home for ever-changing forms of entertainment.
The venue emerged in the early twentieth century through advocates for a downtown theater banding together. A group of local businessmen, organized by Thomas Finnegan, hired architects to design a structure dedicated to live performances and cinema. In 1913, ground broke on what became an iconic piece of the city’s architecture, designed by Waco’s own Roy E. Lane and Dallas architects Otto Land and Frank Witchell. On February 7, 1914, Wacoans gathered at 724 Austin Avenue and paid ten cents a ticket to view the grand opening of the Hippodrome Theatre, featuring a live seal act, magic show, and five-piece orchestra.
For many years, the Hippodrome served as a hub of downtown entertainment. Locals came to know the theater managed by J. P. Harrison and well-known theater entrepreneur Earl Henry Hulsey as “Hulsey’s Hipp.” Vaudeville troupes and silent films filled the theater’s early bills. As the popularity of moving pictures steadily grew, the Hippodrome—an affiliate of Paramount Pictures—steadily began to replace live acts with silent films.
A production booth fire in 1928 destroyed much of the forward portion of the building and brought about serious changes. Louis Dent of Southern Enterprises reopened the theater in 1929 with a new name and a new face. A redesigned Spanish Colonial Revival-style façade and cool air-conditioned air greeted moviegoers at the Waco Theatre. A few years later, new equipment allowed the theater to catch up with local rivals, such as the Orpheum Theatre on Sixth Street, which were already playing talkies. In 1931, the Waco Theatre played its first movie with sound.
The Waco Theatre continued the Hippodrome’s tradition, serving as a prominent figure in the Texas entertainment industry. Visitors from small Texas towns filled downtown Waco on the weekends and caught a show at the Hippodrome in the evening. Big-name performers drew large crowds to the movie theater. Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Fanny Brice each stopped at the theater in the 1930s, and Elvis Presley once caught a show at the Waco Theatre during his time stationed at Fort Hood.
In 1936, new construction added a second story to the grand theater, and two more renovations followed in the 1950s and early 1970s. However, more challenges loomed ahead. By the mid-twentieth century, attention had shifted to suburban areas, and many businesses headed out of the city. Although the theater survived the 1953 tornado unscathed, much of downtown did not. The Twenty Fifth Street Theater began to draw away the downtown audience, and the construction of Twin Cinema in the 1960s brought more customers to the suburbs. The last movie played at the Waco Theatre on December 15, 1974. The building sat vacant for over six years.
The Junior League, the Cooper Foundation, and local volunteers banded together in the 1980s to undertake a restoration project, leading to the reopening of the Waco Hippodrome Theatre on February 28, 1987. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and operated by the Waco Performing Arts Company, the historic theater began to draw visitors back to Austin Avenue once again with live performances. However, the success was short-lived. The steady popularity of suburban theaters kept attendance low, and maintenance for the historic structure proved too costly for fundraisers to maintain. The theater closed again in 2010.
Local developers Shane and Cody Turner purchased the property in 2012 with a vision for adapting the structure. While retaining the building’s historic look, the brothers added a wall to the second story to allow two films to be shown at once and renovated the second floor lobby into a bar. A modern addition on the Eighth Street side of the theater features a restaurant and concession stand. The Hippodrome reopened in November of 2014.
In 2020, parts of the theatre were once again closed for renovations. Now used primarily as a concert hall and adaptive event space, the Hippodrome continues to bring people together and is a centerpiece of Waco’s entertainment scene.
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]]>In 1948, brothers-in-law Jack Schaevitz and Lou Stein opened a small mobile food cart at James Connally Air Force Base. The two became so successful selling burgers and frozen custard to military men that they opened a small restaurant on the Waco traffic circle the following summer. The two brothers fought fiercely over choosing a name for their new business but eventually settled upon “Health Camp,” the words stamped on the eggs that Jack's dad used to sell at his dairy in Youngstown, Ohio.
Initially, the restaurant on the circle consisted of just a small kitchen with a walk-up window from which customers could place their orders. Before business shifted further out into the suburbs, restaurants on the circle such as Health Camp were regular afternoon gathering places for Wacoans. Additionally, the restaurant’s location on the traffic circle ensured that it became a stopping point for travelers between Dallas and Austin.
Schaevitz took pride in associating his business with the local community. He attended the Baylor Homecoming Parade each year until his retirement in 1989, and subsequently lined the walls of his restaurant with pictures he took at the celebration. Although the construction of IH-35 in the early 1960s decreased the number of travellers passing through the Waco traffic circle and eating at the restaurant, Schaevitz found that business continued to thrive due to the patronage of Baylor students.
After working seven days a week for forty years, Jack Schaevitz retired at the age of 78 in 1989. He sold Health Camp to well-known restaurateur David Tinsley and his manager, Sammy Citrano. Tinsley also purchased the neighboring Elite Café (now Magnolia Table).
Little has changed at Health Camp since its opening in the years following World War II. The restaurant continues to serve burgers, custard, and homemade onion rings on the restaurant’s original stainless steel countertops, and many still order their burgers at the walk-up window. A jukebox stands in the corner of the dining room, and photographs and newspapers displaying local history line the walls. Today, customers continue to dine at Health Camp in order to revisit old memories, enjoy the local community, and participate in a small part of Waco’s history.
]]>The story of Reed’s Flowers is as much about its founder, Albert Harry Reed, as it is about the shop. Reed emigrated from London, England, in 1908 at the behest of his brother, Tom Reed. The two Reed brothers worked side by side in Waco as growers for Wolfe’s Florists, and later for Harrick’s Hardware, until the onset of World War I. Although Albert had not attended school past fifth grade, he passed a communications test and entered into radio school. After graduating from Harvard’s Radio Material School, he served in the US Navy.
Although he could have easily found a job working as a radio operator following the conclusion of the war, Reed recognized that his true love was growing plants. He and his wife Blanche opened up a small flower shop on Speight Avenue, but lost everything when the market crashed in 1929. Yet Reed was not ready to give up his dream of running his own flower shop, and he decided to borrow fifty dollars from his mother-in-law to build a small greenhouse on the Old Dallas Highway.
In 1930, Reed opened a second shop at 1025 Austin Avenue with the help from some friends in the Waco Founder Lions Club. The loan of a refrigerator and a rent-free building to house the shop enabled him to get the store up and running, despite the difficult economy of the Depression. Though the Reeds could not always afford to ship in cut flowers, they ensured Reed’s Flowers was always stocked with roses and marigolds they grew in their greenhouses.
During these early years, customers cited the “finest service” and “quality merchandise” as reasons why the business continued to grow even during the Depression. The owners worked tirelessly to support the flower shop. Albert produced the potted plants and cut flowers in the greenhouses while his wife Blanche managed the business operations in the store on Austin Avenue.
Business took off in the years following the Depression. Wolfe’s Flowers, just down the street, proved to be the shop’s largest competitor, until it moved out to South Twelfth Street following World War II. Around a decade later, Reed Flowers Inc. moved down the street to a new shop located at 1029 Austin Avenue in the late 1950s.
Albert continued to operate the flower shop with no intention of retirement, sharing his love of flowers and plants with his son Harry. In 1980, the father and son attended the International Florists Convention in London. Blanche and Albert passed away in 1990, leaving the shop to Harry.
Although Harry sold the greenhouses in 2000, he continued to carry out his father’s legacy through the operation of the flower shop on Austin Avenue until his death in 2019. Today, Reed’s Flowers—now under the management of third generation florist Debbie Reed—serves as a testament to the importance of local family businesses throughout Waco’s history.
]]>Before the construction of dams along Texas rivers in the mid-twentieth century, many cities experienced severe flooding. The Brazos River Basin frequently flooded, wreaking havoc upon those who lived near the banks. Although periodic flooding aided cotton farmers in the early nineteenth century, it hindered the development of infrastructure along the river.
Despite its destructive force, the river provided a wealth of resources for trade, transportation, drinking water, and hydroelectric power. Additionally, many Wacoans desired to use the river as an alternative to the railroads for transporting crops. In 1905, the Rivers and Harbors Act provided funds for the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a series of locks and dams on the Brazos just south of Waco to make it navigable and less prone to flooding. Yet in December 1913, all these efforts proved to be for naught.
Frequent storms in the fall of 1913 often left rivers swollen and water standing in fields. On the morning of December 5, 1913, widespread, heavy rain began to fall across Central Texas. This rainfall added to the already swollen waters of the Brazos River. As the river grew, it overflowed its banks and inundated much of East Waco. The raging waters killed two people and destroyed numerous businesses and houses. The river shifted course due to the heavy flooding, rendering the corps of engineers’ construction project useless. Due to the high cost of rebuilding and the onset of World War I, further efforts to construct a dam were abandoned.
Further south in Texas, the Brazos River and Colorado River overflowed their banks and joined, thereby changing the course of the river and killing 172 people. Recognizing the dire need to curb the unpredictability of the Brazos River, the Brazos River and Valley Improvement Association formed in 1915. Though the association met with the federal Committee on Flood Control on several occasions, the reach of its efforts was limited by its lack of funding.
Although the results were not immediately visible, the 1913 flood spurred action for institution of measures to protect the city of Waco from further flooding, such as the Texas State Legislature flood control study in 1923 and the construction of the first Lake Waco Dam in 1929.
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]]>Prior to local and federal efforts in the mid-twentieth century to control rivers through the construction of dams, the Brazos River routinely overflowed its banks. In 1913, the most violent flood to date overwhelmed East Waco, taking two lives and destroying numerous houses and businesses. This, combined with other disastrous floods throughout the nation, spurred a movement to harness the powerful force of the river.
In 1923, the Texas State Legislature conducted a flood control study which recommended the creation of a state agency with the power to carry out the tasks necessary to curb the destruction of the Brazos River. In 1929, the state formed the Brazos River Conservation and Reclamation District. That same year, after much local debate, a small dam on the Brazos River was constructed. This dam primarily provided the city with a constant water supply, though it also offered minimal amounts of flood protection.
Rain fell heavily throughout Central Texas in 1936. In September, a torrential downpour filled the Brazos River to record levels, cresting at 41 feet. The surging river proved to be too much for the small protective measures taken for the city. About one mile north of Waco, the river burst through a levee and flooded into the city.
The river rose to just a few inches below the floor of the Washington Avenue Bridge and the Suspension Bridge and overflowed its banks, overwhelming East Waco. Although no lives were lost, the flood resulted in approximately $1.5 million worth of property damage and left two thousand residents homeless. In order to restore order and begin the process of rebuilding, city manager W. C. Torrence declared martial law in the flooded area.
As Torrence appealed to citizens for monetary relief for flood victims, Congressman Bob Poage appealed to the federal government for help in taking more serious protective measures for the city. In 1937, the US Army Corps of Engineers conducted a study which recommended the construction of a series of dams on tributary streams of the Brazos River. This ultimately led to the construction of the Lake Whitney and Lake Waco Dams, which today protect the city from disasters such as the 1936 flood.
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]]>In 1886, Wacoans Isaac A. Goldstein and Louey Migel formed the Goldstein-Migel Company in order to try their hand at retail. The partners opened their first store on the ground floor of a building in the 700 block of Austin Avenue with only two clerks in their employ. After just one year of business, Goldstein and Migel possessed sufficient means to annex the adjacent building, thereby doubling their store’s capacity.
The store moved to the corner of Sixth Street and Austin Avenue in the 1890s. The new two-story, double-front brick building allowed Goldstein and Migel to expand the store’s inventory to meet the demands of a rapidly growing customer base. However, on August 18, 1891, tragedy struck when a fire destroyed the entire building. The company lost $80,000 in property damages.
Following the fire, the store was rebuilt and then renovated and expanded several times in the following years. In order to remain competitive with their local rivals, Goldstein-Migel became one of the first dry goods stores in Waco to make use of electric fans, elevators, air conditioning, and public restrooms. The department store even featured a soda fountain and a small restaurant for a time. Goldstein-Migel touted itself in advertisements as “Waco’s greatest department store.” While this claim was certainly embellished for promotional purposes, shoppers could find a variety of quality goods within its walls. The store carried a diverse assortment of clothing, furniture, jewelry, housewares, and other dry goods, spread out in lavishly decorated departments.
During the second half of the twentieth century, Goldstein-Migel faced the challenges of suburbanization and economic downturn. In a bid to cater to a customer base that was increasingly relocating to the suburbs by the early 1960s, Goldstein-Migel opened a second location at the Lake Air Mall. Not to be forgotten, the original Goldstein-Migel location became one of the centerpieces of the Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall, an urban renewal project sponsored by the City of Waco in 1970. Urban planners hoped that by closing the street to traffic and beautifying the space, residents would see the downtown as a viable shopping destination once again. Unfortunately, the mall failed to attract the long-term loyalty of customers, and the venture was abandoned in 1984. The demise of the pedestrian mall led to the demolition of Goldstein-Migel’s downtown location and the transfer of all operations to the suburban department store. Yet not even the suburbs could save Goldstein-Migel when difficult economic times led to the closure of the Lake Air Mall, forcing the department store to cease operations for good.
In spite of a competitive retail industry and the fickle economy, Goldstein-Migel proved its success through over a century of faithful service to Wacoans.
]]>Julius “Jules” Bledsoe’s extraordinary musical talent transcended racial discrimination of the nineteenth century and established him as a pioneer in American music.
Bledsoe was born on December 29, 1897, to Henry and Jessie Bledsoe in Waco. Even as a young child, he loved to sing. Bledsoe first performed publically at the age of five at New Hope Baptist Church, a church founded by his grandfather in 1866. In 1914, Bledsoe graduated from Central Texas Academy as valedictorian, and travelled to Marshall, Texas, to study liberal arts and music at Bishop College. After graduating magna cum laude in 1918, Bledsoe served as a civilian chaplain for an ROTC program at Virginia Union University in Richmond from 1918 to 1919.
In 1920, Bledsoe began his graduate study of medicine at Columbia University. After taking voice lessons with notable musicians such as Claude Warford, Luigi Parisotti, and Lazar Samoiloff, however, his career plans began to shift. He made his professional music debut on April 20, 1924, in the Aeolian Hall in mid-town Manhattan. Sol Hurok, a twentieth-century American impresario, sponsored Bledsoe’s first performance. Over the next several years, Bledsoe performed in various capacities around the city. He received his first leading role in an opera in 1926, when he performed the baritone role of Tizan in Deep River. Following one of Bledsoe’s New York performances, a critic from the New York Morning Telegraph praised Bledsoe as the star of the cast who could “pick the heart right out of anybody.”
Yet it was Bledsoe’s portrayal of Joe in a 1927 production of Jerome Kern's Showboat which launched him into the spotlight. His interpretation of the tune “Ol’ Man River” became a classic in American music. He later starred in the 1929 film production of Showboat as well. Bledsoe quickly earned international renown. He performed both in the United States and in Europe, and was praised for his command of several languages, his impressive vocal range and control, and a power to communicate ideas and emotions through music.
During this time, racial discrimination prevented African Americans from performing with major opera companies. Yet Bledsoe’s talent and renown earned him the right to perform with distinguished organizations such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the BBC Symphony in London, the Royal-Dutch Italian Opera Company, and the Cosmopolitan Opera Association in New York.
Bledsoe did not confine his career solely to the performance of music, but also composed many pieces. He wrote several spirituals and patriotic songs, such as “Pagan Prayer” and “Ode to America.” The Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam performed his African Suite, a set of four songs for voice and opera. Bledsoe also composed an opera titled Bondage in 1939, based upon Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Bledsoe moved to Los Angeles in 1940 in order to continue his vocal training, as well as to star in several films such as Drums of the Congo, Santa Fe Trail, and Western Union. Bledsoe set out on another tour in 1943 to promote the sale of war bonds. Accompanied for a portion of his trip by Eleanor Roosevelt, Bledsoe performed before large crowds, often offering several encores at each performance. Tragically, he passed away on this tour on July 14, 1943, from a cerebral hemorrhage.Attended by family, friends, New Hope Baptist Church members, and distinguished speakers A. J. Armstrong of Baylor University and Bishop College President J. J. Rhoades, Bledsoe’s funeral in Waco served as a testament to his incomparable ability to transcend division and communicate through music.
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]]>Since 1894, the Methodist Children’s Home has provided a home and family for needy children in Central Texas. Though its role in the community has changed over the years, its devotion to helping the most vulnerable in society has remained constant.
In the late nineteenth century, Methodist Bishop Joseph S. Key saw the profound need for an institution to care for the plight of orphans in Texas. He enlisted the help of Dr. Horace Bishop, the pastor of Waco’s First Methodist Church, and drew up plans to present at the Northwest Texas Methodist Conference in Abilene. In November of 1890, the conference unanimously voted for the creation of an orphanage, proclaiming that “practical religion cares for the helpless.”
A Methodist committee met in 1893 to determine a suitable location for the home and elected Waco after the city donated a ten-acre estate, including a sixteen-room residence. Dr. W. H. Vaughn, the first superintendent of the home, and his wife Pauline, moved in at the beginning of 1894. By the end of that year, twenty-six children lived at the Northwest Texas Conference Orphans Home.
The home’s primary source of support during its early years came from special offerings collected at Christmas by the five regional Texas Methodist conferences. Despite the generosity of the congregations, these funds did not fully support the rapidly growing orphanage. By the end of 1895, forty-three children resided at the facility and homes in the local community cared for twenty-one others. Moved by the orphanage’s important work and financial struggles, Methodist evangelists Abe and Louisa Mulkey pledged the proceeds from one night of each of their revivals to the home. This money funded the construction of an administration building in 1899, and in 1901, leaders dedicated the new building and the remainder of the orphanage at an official ceremony. When the Vaughns left the home in 1905, the debt-free institution resided upon 28 acres of land supported by a 173-acre farm on the Bosque River.
The orphanage continued to thrive and develop over the next several decades. New directors changed the home’s fundraising methods, inviting Methodists to contribute to the welfare of the orphans year-round. Individuals’s contributions soon became the largest form of support for the orphanage. Decreased funding brought by the Great Depression hit the orphanage hard. To make ends meet, director W. F. Barnett cut staff and used his own salary to fund the institution. The economic hardship eased some in 1934 when philanthropist Joe J. Perkins became a large donor to the home after meeting several of the children residing there.
During the early twentieth century, the Mulkeys’ support allowed the orphanage to construct additional buildings, such as a dining hall and a few dormitories, to meet the needs of the growing orphanage. Dr. Hubert Johnson later changed from the dormitory model to provide a more homelike atmosphere for the children residing at the orphanage. Between 1938 and 1952, small numbers of children were moved into cottage-style homes under the care of a houseparent. Around this same time, the children began to attend local schools such as Waco High and A. J. Moore High School, rather than classes taught at the Methodist Orphanage.
The home’s role shifted with the new social trends of the 1950s. More children were arriving at the home due to divorce, mental illness, or physical abuse than as orphans, and the staff and organization of the home evolved to meet these needs. It was in this period that the institution’s name changed one final time to the Methodist Children’s Home. The facility became increasingly known for developing programs for foster-home placement and family rehabilitation. In 1971, the home established a ranch ten miles east of Waco for troubled teenage boys to build a solid foundation for their lives through education and leadership opportunities.
The Methodist Children’s Home celebrated its centennial in 1990, having sheltered more than seventeen thousand children in Central Texas in its long and storied history.
]]>During the twentieth century, Elm Avenue served as a commercial hub and community center in East Waco. Looking to launch his own venture, entrepreneur Ike Kestner opened a bank and grocery store in the 500 block of the street in 1914. A full-page advertisement in the Waco News-Tribune announcing “fifteen days of wonderful bargains” reveals the store’s transition to dry goods’ sales by the 1920s.
Kestner’s Family Department Store became a central part of life along Elm Avenue. Patrons loyally returned to the store because of its quality merchandise offered at low prices. McLennan County Commissioner Lester Gibson told the Waco Tribune-Herald that he grew up shopping in Kestner’s where his mother bought him overalls and ties because it was “a working man’s store.” Waco newspapers frequently ran advertisements for Kestner’s manufacturer outlet sales which proudly offered merchandise for less than the raw materials could be purchased for. The family atmosphere of the department store also contributed to its success. Ike trained his son, Jack Kestner, to run the store alongside him. Jack later passed on the ownership of the store to his son-in-law, Howard Cohen, although he himself continued to work in the store until he retired in 1985.
The 1950s and 1960s represented Elm Avenue’s prime. The street filled with crowds travelling amongst shops and restaurants, stopping in various stores. Kestner’s employees often found it impossible to stop for breaks because the shop filled with customers. However, the suburbanization of Waco took a heavy toll on East Waco. Shops left Elm Avenue for the swiftly developing Valley Mills Drive, and walk-in traffic at Kestner’s waned following the opening of Wal-Mart.
To meet this trend, Kestner’s Family Department Store expanded to a second location in 1979 on North Thirty-Fourth Street under Cohen’s ownership. Since the majority of the department store’s sales were composed of men’s clothing, Cohen also opened Kestner’s Fine Jewelry Store on Bosque Boulevard in order to widen Kestner’s customer base.
Longtime employee Donald Fadal began working in the store during its heyday in 1960 and became the owner in 1984. To meet the challenge of the department store’s dwindling customer base, Fadal carried on the Kestner’s tradition of hard work, customer service, and quality merchandise. He developed personal services such as free alterations to entice greater sales and drew upon the loyal following which Ike and Jack had cultivated during the store’s early days.
Much to the dismay of longtime patrons and many East Wacoans, Fadal decided to retire in 2002 due to health concerns. Although Kestner’s Family Department Store closed in March of 2003 after one final sale, its nearly ninety years of low prices, quality goods, and dedicated customer service established it as a vital piece of the history of both Elm Avenue and Waco.
]]>First Presbyterian Church of Waco is one of McLennan County’s oldest Protestant congregations, formed several years before Waco’s incorporation as a city.
On April 20, 1855, a group of Presbyterians in Waco Village petitioned the Central Texas Presbytery for permission to organize a local church. After receiving permission, the first nineteen members of First Presbyterian of McLennan County began to meet in a Methodist and Episcopal shared building on South Second Street.
Church members banded together to finance the construction of their own place of worship in 1870, spending $5,500 to construct a small brick church at the corner of Second Street and Jackson Avenue. The congregation soon outgrew this small building and purchased a lot on Austin Avenue in 1882. That same year on April 25, the church called Dr. Samuel A. King to serve as its first permanent pastor. Workers completed construction on the church in 1884.
As the congregation continued to rapidly expand toward the end of the nineteenth century, the church became increasingly focused on community service in addition to serving as a worship center. A choir was organized by the late 1880s, as well as a Women’s Working Society, which later became the Woman’s Auxiliary. Church members pursued local mission work while continuing to collect money in support of foreign missionary efforts.
By the time of the installation of Rev. Charles T. Caldwell as pastor on September 27, 1903, it was clear that the church needed to expand once again. After initial construction plans came to a halt when the Waco Street Railway Company announced intentions to lay tracks near the location for the new building in May of 1911, the church sold the lot for a profit and purchased new property at the corner of Austin Avenue and Eleventh Street. Church leaders contracted Fell & Ainsworth Construction of Waco to construct an English Gothic-style church designed by F. M. Mann. Dr. King returned to preach at the inaugural service on April 14, 1912.
Although the church continued to rapidly expand and develop, change was on the horizon. As World War I brought an increased military presence to Waco, First Presbyterian members sought to provide soldiers with a “home away from home” through prayer services, social events, and charity drives. Later, just months after the church executed an elaborate two-day celebration of its Diamond Jubilee in 1930, the effects of the 1929 stock market crash began to be seen around Waco. In order to conserve resources, Rev. Caldwell cut his own salary and reduced the church’s expenditures.
The turmoil of the mid-twentieth century proved First Presbyterian’s commitment to what members described as “sympathetic Christian charity.” During World War II, the church once again opened its doors to support Waco’s military population. Congregants also sent supplies to aid efforts of hospitals and the Red Cross between 1941 and 1945. The church served as the Red Cross headquarters for six weeks during the early stages of Waco’s recovery from the devastating 1953 tornado. Individual members’ contributions continued to support efforts in Waco such as Meals on Wheels, the Family Abuse Center, and the support of a Vietnamese refugee family. In 1971, First Presbyterian became the official home of Caritas, an interfaith agency for the poor.
On November 17, 1991, the congregation voted to borrow $1.4 million for its “First into the Twenty-First” campaign, which funded a much needed renovation of the church and the construction of extra wings for religious education. The church launched a yearlong celebration of its vast history in 2004, culminating in the sesquicentennial day on April 20, 2005. Today, First Presbyterian Church of Waco works to meet the spiritual, social, and practical needs of the community through its commitment to Christian charity.
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]]>Sanger Brothers department stores were often described as the pioneer retail stores of Texas. Yet these successful mercantile ventures arose from humble beginnings. Between 1852 and 1874, five of the seven Sanger brothers immigrated to America from Germany to pursue greater entrepreneurial opportunities. Although the brothers initially separated and spread throughout the country, they slowly came back together in the years following the Civil War to join the dry goods business that Isaac, the eldest brother, operated from a storefront in McKinney. As more brothers joined the business, it slowly expanded along the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, opening stores in cities such as Millican, Decatur, Bryan, Dallas, and eventually Waco.
Sam Sanger traveled to the United States in 1866 and lived in the Northeast for several years serving as a rabbi and a teacher. In 1872, he opened a small shoe store in New York, but closed it the following year when Isaac summoned him to Texas in order to open their newest location. On March 4, 1873, Sam opened Sanger Brothers in the heart of downtown Waco on the square between Austin Avenue and Bankers’ Alley.
The new enterprise started out small, with just $1,300 worth of stock and only two employed clerks at its opening. Despite this, the business still carried a variety of goods. The Waco Daily Examiner ran a full-page advertisement listing the items which could be found at Sanger Brothers, including “dry goods, clothing, boots, shoes, hats, caps, gents’ furnishing goods, carpets, oil cloths,” and more. By 1876, business expanded beyond the capacity of the small shop, and Sam Sanger purchased a new, larger building on Austin Avenue between Fourth Street and Fifth Street. That same year, all of the branches of the Sanger Brothers franchise closed, except for the two most successful locations in Waco and Dallas.
Despite the closures, the success and expansion of the Waco Sanger Brothers store continued. In 1882,Sanger purchased another building on Austin Avenue and began to rent out the old Waco Opera House and warehouse in order to open a wholesale department. Sanger Brothers continued to develop their reputation in Waco based upon providing the best selection of goods in town and a dedication to meeting customer needs in any situation.
News of the onset of World War I and the decline of the cotton market in 1915 provided the first hint of trouble for the Waco department store. Farmers who purchased goods on credit from the wholesale department were increasingly no longer able to pay their bill. But business boomed during the actual war as industry production increased throughout the country, and on December 17, 1918, Sanger Brothers incorporated.
The store received a second and more serious indication of trouble on December 18, 1919, when Sam Sanger died. His charismatic leadership of the company contributed greatly to its success, and none of the other executives were prepared to take over. Although his son, Asher Sanger, took over leadership, the company sustained fiscal losses between 1918 and 1926, when it was then sold to a Saint Louis firm. Unable to recover from these losses, and hit hard by the Great Depression, Sanger Brothers finally closed its doors on March 15, 1931. In its announcement of Sanger Brothers’s closure, the Waco Tribune-Herald noted the dismay of many Wacoans at the loss of this institution, stating that thousands were expected to show up for the sales during the store’s final days.
For over half a century, Sanger Brothers served as a highly successful venture in the heart of downtown because of its commitment to variety and quality in merchandise, as well as excellence in customer service.
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]]>Though not uncommon to late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century cities, red-light districts were regarded as areas of ill repute where madams and prostitutes worked outside the law. Yet in 1889, Waco—a city lauded for its multitude of educational institutions and churches—became only the second city in the United States to legalize such an area. This district, known as the Reservation, or sometimes as Two-Street, brought in thousands of dollars of revenue to the city while serving as a source of controversy for many years.
Waco’s 1871 charter differed slightly from that of most Texas cities. Rather than completely outlawing prostitution, the Waco charter included a provision for the city government to suppress or regulate bordellos. For many years, government officials attempted to control prostitution and, in 1884, implemented laws to completely suppress it. However, these actions proved in vain, and after just five years of attempting to eliminate prostitution, the city of Waco did a complete about-face on its strategy.
The new policy legalized prostitution in a small area just off of downtown between Washington Avenue, North Third Street, Jefferson Avenue, and the Brazos River, providing the city with more control over where and when such actions could take place. The policy also segregated the area by race, and prohibited drinking within its limits. Prostitutes were required to sign the Bawdy House Register and pay a $10 licensing fee every three months. Each woman also had to pay to be examined by a city doctor twice a month. Madams paid fees for each bedroom of the house they ran, as well as additional fees for each resident of the house. Any woman recorded on the Bawdy House Register seen outside of the Reservation could be charged with vagrancy and fined up to $200.
Though legal, the Reservation and its occupants were looked upon with disdain by the rest of Waco. Since the women could not walk to the city to shop for fear of being charged with vagrancy, they traveled in enclosed carriages directly to the stores, where a clerk either met them at the curb with the goods they required or sent them to the back of the store to keep them out of public sight. Children of prostitutes were shunned as well. In 1893, a city wide vote banned children born of women listed on the Bawdy House Register from Waco’s public schools. Itinerant evangelists often spoke against the evils of prostitution in Waco but rarely reached out to help the actual women themselves. For instance, when J. T. Upchurch established a rescue society to aid prostitutes in Waco, the local Methodist church kicked him out of the congregation.
Abandonment and financial desperation led many women to the Reservation. In the nineteenth century, a divorced or pregnant-out-of-wedlock woman struggled to find a career and often was abandoned by her family and friends. As many as one hundred women worked in the Reservation during its heyday. Some, such as renowned Waco madam Mollie Adams, became enormously wealthy and successful. In one case, a madam named Della Smith even left the Reservation, married a grocer, and lived the rest of her life in respectable society. Yet for many of these women, life in the Reservation ended in drugs, alcohol, and violence.
By some estimates, the city made up to $12,000 of revenue per year from the licensing and regulatory fees. Yet when the federal government sent a message to the city council in 1917 warning the city to shut down the vice district, the decision to do so was made quickly. With the inevitability of the US entering the Great War looming ahead, Waco could either close the Reservation or pass up on the possibility of gaining a military base.
Despite the construction of Camp MacArthur, traces of the Reservation—which in many ways distinguished Waco from other cities—remained. However, the remnants of the district slowly whittled away in the 1920s as bordellos closed, economic interests shifted elsewhere, and immigrants fleeing violence at the Texas-Mexico border moved into the neighborhood to fill the emptied houses. That transition marked the unofficial end of the contentious vice district which once brought both controversy and economic profit to the city.
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]]>Near the turn of the twentieth century, a booming cotton industry was quickly establishing Waco as one of the major urban centers of the South, encouraging many residents to more readily invest and spend their money locally. In 1890, local stone contractor John Tennant decided to build himself a new home after striking a deal with banker J. W. Mann. The deal provided Tennant with a plot of land in exchange for a stone obelisk to mark the Mann plot in Oakwood Cemetery. Tennant took leftover stone from his latest construction job, the Provident Building at the corner of Fourth Street and Franklin Avenue, in order to begin construction on the basement and foundation of his new home, situated at the outskirts of the city.
The reality of Tennant’s financial situation did not quite match up to his grandiose dreams. After struggling to make ends meet, he sold the unframed house to cotton broker Ripley Hanrick in 1906 under the agreement that Tennant could continue to do the stone work on the house. However, when financial difficulties continued, the pair abandoned the house in 1908.
A few years later, local investors employed Roy E. Lane to construct the elite Huaco Club in the same area as the castle. Some expressed concern over the abandoned and unfinished home, but Lane saw the building as a blank slate of potential. He convinced notable Wacoan and Civil War veteran Capt. Alfred Abeel to purchase the home in 1913. Abeel employed Lane to complete the frame. Lane transformed the frame into a castle complete with three stories and a basement, eight fireplaces, servants’ quarters, and a tower. Modeled after a small German castle along the Rhine River, white sandstone and small amounts of limestone composed the exterior of the house. The interior accents varied by room and floor, including imported materials such as Caen stone from France, Carrara marble from Italy, and Honduran mahogany paneling.
In 1941, Irene Pipkin, whose family owned the Pipkin Drugstores, purchased the home and moved in with her daughter and son-in-law. When she passed away, the castle passed to her daughter, Pauline Pipkin Garrett, Waco’s first female pharmacist. Pauline and her husband Barney Garrett resided in the home for many years.
After Pauline passed away, her will stated that Garrett could retain the home until he no longer wished to reside in it. When Garrett decided to move out, the home entered its only period of public use when it passed to the Austin Avenue Methodist Church. The church found the home to be an ideal place to host youth events, but the expense of keeping up the home soon became too great. The church sold the home to Jack Schwan in 1969 for $50,000.
The Schwan family fixed many of the issues in the home arising from age and disuse, and also renovated the second floor, following a tropical fantasy theme. In 1977, the Schwans applied for and received a historical marker for the home. The family attempted to sell the castle in 1982, believing it to be worth close to $1.25 million after the renovations. However, the high price frightened away many interested buyers.
Jack Schwan finally found a buyer in 1991 after cutting the price of the castle drastically. Over the next two decades, the home passed through various owners’ hands and fell into disrepair. Many owners found the castle too large and in need of too much maintenance to be a financially feasible home. In 2014, the home sold again and a new group—led by Oxford scholar Dirk Obbink, contractor Tom Lupfer Jr., and architect Sterling Thompson—has begun the process of renovating the castle.
In 2019 Cottonland Castle was purchased by Chip and Joanna Gaines of the famous retail empire Magnolia Market and they finished rennovation of the structure in summer 2022.
The castle will always be a striking hallmark of the Castle Heights neighborhood, and the impressive home continues to stand as a quiet reminder of the importance of the cotton industry which once brought prosperity to Waco.
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]]>Waco’s rapid development established it as one of the most significant urban centers of the South by the late nineteenth century. Home to one of the longest-spanning suspension bridges in the country, the once small frontier town owed a great portion of its success to the cotton industry. The strong agricultural tradition established by Stephen F. Austin and Waco’s earliest settlers in the mid-nineteenth century flourished into an international trade system. Farmers grew, ginned, and shipped this “white gold” not only throughout Texas, but also to Europe, South America, and India. Waco reigned in the South as the “King of Cotton” until the onset of the Great Depression.
By 1900, cottonseed was second only to lumber as the most important cash crop in Texas. Mills sprang up all over the state as Texas established itself as the leading processor of cottonseed in the nation, and one of the largest suppliers of cooking oil, vegetable shortening, margarine, and salad oil—byproducts of cottonseed oil.
On January 29, 1910, J. T. Davis established Brazos Valley Cotton Oil, Inc., in Waco. The main operations of the company took place at a mill located on the block between Webster Avenue and Jackson Avenue in the heart of Waco’s business district.
From its onset, the locally owned mill contributed enormously to the economic wealth of the city by purchasing thousands of tons of cottonseed annually from farmers, and employing up to seventy-five men. The railway ran adjacent to the mill, bringing in shipments of cotton from local gins in order to be processed. Workers then extracted oil from the cottonseed to be used for both culinary and industrial purposes. After the mill’s completely modernized machinery processed the seed, the oil was shipped all over the world. In order to prevent unnecessary waste, the mill sold unused meal as cattle feed.
Davis grew the company quickly, and by 1924 had already acquired a second company, the Valley Mills Cotton Oil Company. Though the Great Depression marked the decline of Waco’s cotton industry, business at the cotton oil mill continued for many years. The firm faced several setbacks in the mid-twentieth century, such as the fire which erupted in the mill in 1943, destroying the hull house and mixed feed plant. Yet operations continued, and even flourished. By 1950, workers completed construction on the two 120-foot-tall silos which today are noted as some of Waco’s most notable landmarks.
The latter half of the century saw a turn in the cotton mill’s fortunes. A serious drought followed by widespread Central Texas flooding in 1957 led to sporadic production, and in September the Small Business Administration granted the Brazos Valley Cotton Oil Company a disaster loan. However, the firm was unable to recover, and in July of 1958, stockholders sold the company to David C. Blintliff Interests of Houston. In the mid-1960s, ownership of the plant changed hands again, and the mill served as a storage facility for JPM Feeds. The facility sat vacant in the 1990s, although the Murphys, owners of JPM Feeds, retained ownership of the property.
In 2014, well-known television personalities and Wacoans Chip and Joanna Gaines purchased the mill from Gary Murphy with a vision to restore and repurpose the historic site. After receiving approval from the city, the pair began construction work on Magnolia Market, a $1.4 million project which was completed in October of 2015. Though the festival marketplace offers modern additions such as a retail showroom, a monthly antique and craft market, and a food truck court, the Gaineses are working to retain the historic integrity of the site through efforts such as the preservation of the original silos.
For nearly half a century, the mill bolstered Waco’s economy through its support of local farmers, provision of jobs, and international commerce. Today, the adaptive reuse and preservation efforts of the Gaineses ensure that the mill will retain this role at the heart of the city’s economic development for many years to come.
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]]>Dubbed the “Athens of Texas” by many who praised the veritable wealth of knowledge found within the city, Waco boasted a host of educational institutions and news sources which promoted the distribution of information. First established in 1865, just a few years after Waco incorporated, the Waco Examiner was one of the city’s first newspapers. John Wesley Downs published the first issue of the Waco Examiner in 1865. As editor in chief, Downs employed Henry Payne as his assistant editor and J. M. Conrad to run the paper’s mechanical department. Conrad printed the semiweekly, four-page paper using a Franklin common press, a handpress which used a large wooden screw to create an impression upon paper. As the reputation of the Waco Examiner grew, Downs expanded the paper’s services. In 1868, Payne and Conrad sold their interests to Downs. Shortly thereafter, Downs began to offer a weekly publication in addition to the semiweekly subscription. By November of 1873, the popularity of the Waco Examiner had reached unseen heights. Downs quickly altered the structure of subscriptions once again, eliminating the semiweekly issue and instituting a new daily paper.
As more Wacoans subscribed to the Daily Examiner, Downs’s profits also increased. In 1873, citizens could purchase a yearly subscription to the daily paper for $8, or receive the weekly issue for $2.50 per year. By the late 1880s, the daily subscription cost $10, while the price of the weekly issue had dropped to $1.50. Downs continued to develop the business and began to offer customers the option to purchase the paper for one, three, four, and six months at a time, in addition to the yearly subscriptions.
The Examiner papers were associated with the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization which worked to advance agricultural and political causes on behalf of farmers throughout America. In 1873, the Weekly Examiner was made the official mouthpiece of the Patrons of Husbandry in Texas. When the paper reached a circulation of thirteen thousand, Downs changed the name to the Daily Examiner and Patron. Downs’s support of the Grange led him to purchase the Waco Telephone, another paper which served as a mouthpiece for the Texas Grange, and to incorporate it into the Daily Examiner. The paper became known for a short time as the Waco Daily Examiner and Telephone. Downs continued to support the granger movement until it adopted the greenback policy, an attempt to return to currency not backed by gold, around 1878. On May 18, 1875, the Examiner office burned down, completely destroying Downs’s printing equipment. The paper remained out of print for two months while Downs recovered from the losses. Although the paper appeared once again in July, Downs sold it just a few years later in 1882 to Captain John E. Elgin. In September of 1884, the firm of Bartow, Cravens, and Leachman purchased the paper from Elgin. The new firm focused more broadly upon local, regional, state, national, and international news rather than the interests of the Grange. On November 24, 1887, the paper changed firms again. The Examiner Publishing Company, directed by Frank P. Cravens, continued to run the paper until it ceased publication in 1888. By the late 1880s, the Waco Examiner claimed to have the largest circulation record of any paper in Texas. In a town where life increasingly depended upon agriculture, the paper sought to protect the interests of farmers while fostering discussion and sharing information.
]]>Tidwell Bible Building stands as a physical memorial not only to the formation of Baylor’s modern Department of Religion, but also as a symbol of the university’s dedication to Christian ideals.
Prior to 1910, Baylor’s Bible Department offered primarily professional training for ministers. Yet the entire department moved to Fort Worth after becoming a theological seminary officially independent of the university in 1908. As the new head of the Baylor religion department, Josiah Blake Tidwell shifted the focus of the department toward the education of undergraduates. Though it reflected Tidwell’s highly traditional and conservative values, he viewed the department as a primarily academic department, and his work served as the origin for the current religion department.
Strongly influenced by his work, 125 of Tidwell’s students met at the Baptist General Convention of Texas at Mineral Wells in 1936 to discuss plans to erect a building on the Baylor campus bearing his name. Although the students launched a fundraising campaign for the construction of a simple building that same year, it took nearly eighteen years for the realization of their vision.
As enrollment increased at Baylor University and classroom space dwindled, the Tidwell Bible Building Committee formed in the mid-1940s when the university realized the practical need for a new building for the religion department. The committee employed different marketing strategies in order to obtain enough money to complete the project. For instance, December 2, 1945 was declared Tidwell Bible Building Day, and Baptist churches throughout the state took up collections to fund the construction. But it was a pamphlet produced in the late-1940s and early-1950s bearing Guy A. Carlander’s suggested design for a grandiose building which ultimately secured enough pledges for the groundbreaking ceremony to take place in 1949.
Baylor president W. R. White spoke at the dedication held in Tidwell Bible Building’s Miller Memorial Chapel on October 22, 1954. Designed by the architectural firm Birch D. Easterwood and Son to bear enough symbolism to indicate its use for religious purposes without resembling a church structure, the seven-floor building cost around $600,000 to construct.
Sixty-eight limestone panels depicting biblical scenes make up one of the most distinctive features of the building. Planned by Baylor religion professors and designed and carved by Ira Correll and son, the ornate panels encircle the building twice bearing images of stories from both the Old and New Testament.
In addition to housing enough classroom space for up to 800 students, the new building also held space for the Tidwell Bible Library, office space for faculty, and Miller Memorial Chapel. Since its dedication in 1953, the structure has housed classes for the religion, history, philosophy, sociology, nursing, modern foreign language, and sacred music departments.
In 2020, Tidwell underwent extensive renovations intended to maximize space, improve infrastructure, and increase accessibility while preserving the defining features of the building. One major change to the building was the conversion of Miller Memorial Chapel to classroom and office space, as the proliferation of chapels on campus meant it was no longer the primary chapel of the university, and faculty office space in Tidwell was limited in the past.
Today, Tidwell Bible Building remains home to the religion, sociology, and history departments, and towers over the campus as a physical reminder of the university’s commitment to Christian ideals and education.
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