For many immigrants throughout the 1800s, the United States seemed to be a land filled with promise. Texas, in particular, appeared to be a place where dreams could be fulfilled. Otto Monnig, a Prussian immigrant to Missouri, believed this to be true. In 1870, Monnig opened a Family General Store in Gasconade County, Missouri, where he sold clothing, toys, and groceries, while also running a drugstore and post office. This business venture served as a precursor for what was to come for the Monnig family. In April 1889, after sending his son William Monnig to assess business prospects in Texas, he decided to open Monnig’s Dry Goods and Hardware Store in Fort Worth, the fifth largest city in Texas.
For the Monnigs, the promise of a better life held true. Business boomed. In fact, on opening day, Monnig’s department store brought in $44—over $1,000 today. The enterprise continued to expand its inventory and remained in competition against other notable Texas businesses like Cox’s. In 1900, after investing in bulk merchandise, their business model expanded, and they also entered the wholesale dry goods business. The retail and wholesale divisions continued successfully, and the business opened locations across the state, including one in an up-and-coming Texas city: Waco.
Otto Edward Monnig supervised the expansion project, following in his father’s and uncle’s footsteps. Though he had lived in Waco and since moved to California, his wife convinced him to return. That advice proved sound as he became the operator of Monnig’s in Waco, growing the business and its inventory.
The first Waco location opened in 1932 on Fifth and Washington, continuing the retail and wholesale model. Monnig’s, branded as “the Friendly Store,” now offered more than dry goods and hardware. The store sold clothes, groceries, toys, beauty products, candy, and flowers, and still maintained their wholesale business. Customers who could not make it to the store had the option to call a “Miss Shopper,” an employee who could shop for needed items and ensure their delivery. With an abundance of merchandise and a growing retail division, the Monnigs decided to open an additional location in town.
The new Monnig’s opened at 604 Austin Avenue on August 27, 1936. While the Waco department store branched out into the downtown area, the grocery division remained at the old location, 120 North Fifth Street. This new location offered an extensive variety of clothing, furniture, and other retail items. After leasing the Horne Building, the business dedicated the 60-by-165-feet ground level to merchandise alone. The second floor remained utilized as storage space for wholesale materials.
Thrilled at the department store’s expansion, Wacoans rushed out to opening day. Multiple local businesses endorsed Monnig’s, including The First National Bank of Waco and Mailander & Company, who aided in the three-month remodeling process. The store expected such an influx of people that they opened at nine o’clock in the morning, rather than eight thirty, to ensure that employees could prepare for the rush.
Though Monnig’s survived the historic 1953 Waco tornado and nationally vexing financial periods, the business eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1988. Monnig’s department stores across Texas closed their doors, and in 1989, Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems (CTAS) occupied the old Monnig’s building at Seventh and Austin. By 1990, bankruptcy resulted in the closing of all seven Monnig’s locations across Texas. Still, many Wacoans reflected fondly on the local store during its decades of success. While Monnig’s opened business because of the opportunities Texas offered, the Waco department store promised a new future for the downtown area and the city more broadly.
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]]>R. T. Dennis and Co. helped furnish the homes of Central Texas for nearly seventy years. Known for its exceptional quality furnishings, R. T. Dennis thrived in downtown Waco and served as the premier home décor destination. Unfortunately, the R. T. Dennis building, as well as the company, met their end when an F5 tornado leveled the building in May 1953.
R. T. Dennis and Co. was born out of the dream of two brothers, Robert T. Dennis and James K. Dennis, in 1886. The two brothers first moved to Central Texas in 1874 and worked as rail-splitters in Hillsboro for a short time. Robert then tried his hand in the grocery and dry-goods businesses, but his passion existed elsewhere. Robert joined the furniture business, taking a job in 1875 with W. P. Martin and Bro., Furniture as a delivery wagon driver. He saw promotions to salesperson and bookkeeper in the coming years. After twelve years of learning the trade, Robert felt confident to step out on his own, and he started R. T. Dennis and Brother with James in Gatesville. In 1889, they decided to move their operations to Waco, as the city was growing rapidly and taking off as a market center. In 1892, the Dennis brothers rented a building on the corner of Fifth Street and Austin Avenue constructed by Richard Coke, which they later purchased in 1904, and the scene was set for the expansion of their business.
What began largely as a coffin and funeral service business soon exploded into a vibrant retail and wholesale enterprise for all types of furniture and carpets. In the first six months of operations in Waco, the company’s net worth skyrocketed from $8,000 to $50,000. R. T. Dennis and Co. also opened stores in Hillsboro (run by James Dennis), Bryan, and Temple. This sudden rise to success made Robert Dennis an important man in the Waco community, and he soon became the director of the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of Waco and eventually invested in a number of business ventures in town, including the ALICO building. He also kick-started Dennis Manufacturing, which produced some of the furniture for his store. Robert even used a bit of pageantry to advertise his business and attract attention, sometimes putting the costumes from the local opera in his shop windows and always having an impressive display at the Texas Cotton Palace each year. By 1915, the Dennis brothers were able to buy out rival furniture store Stratton Furniture and further expand their reach in the Waco economy. Following World War I, R. T. Dennis and Co. purchased the Tom Padgitt Company building that abutted the store to use as a warehouse, making the entire block of Fifth Street from Austin Avenue to Franklin Avenue under R. T. Dennis’s ownership.
The 1920s brought further growth for the company but also the loss of its founder. In 1920, Dennis decided to incorporate for an impressive sum of $500,000, and the company became R. T. Dennis and Co., Inc. The same year, Dennis sold Dennis Manufacturing and dedicated the business entirely to retail and wholesale furniture. By 1924 the company had started a mattress factory and employed four traveling salesmen covering three states: Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. These men traveled with photographs and catalogs and allowed people to place orders for R. T. Dennis furniture from afar. This required the company to keep a large stock on hand, and as a result it purchased real estate around Waco to use as warehouses. One such purchase came in 1926 when R. T. Dennis bought Waco Dry Goods on Sixth Street and Jackson Avenue. The Hilton then tapped R. T. Dennis to furnish its new hotel in downtown Waco in 1928 (which later became the Roosevelt Hotel). This turned out to be Dennis’s last major business deal, as he died in June of 1928 of a prolonged illness. Treasurer Willard Robert Wigley, whose father, W. J. Wigley, had helped found R. T. Dennis and Co. and R. T. Dennis and Wigley Co. (Dallas), took over as president upon Dennis’s death and remained in that position until the dissolution of the company.
R. T. Dennis and Co. went on to weather the Depression of the 1930s quite well, marketing their products as necessary and practical. Robert Dennis’s nephew-in-law, Rush H. Berry, enjoyed a promotion in the mid-1930s from secretary to vice president, a position he held until his death. In the 1940s his own son, Labon E. Berry, filled the secretary position and become general manager, with business continuing steadily throughout World War II. In 1950 the company was named to the Grand Rapids Furniture Makers Guild, a guild reserved for only the highest-quality furniture companies.
Despite all its success, the end of R. T. Dennis and Co. came swiftly and suddenly. On May 11, 1953, a massive Category 5 tornado ripped through downtown Waco. The site of the R. T. Dennis building was classified as the “impact area,” receiving the full force of the twister. Both the R. T. Dennis and Tom Padgitt buildings were reduced to rubble. Of the thirty-one employees in the building, twenty-two were killed. Some employees sought shelter in the basement, only for the basement to flood when the debris punctured a water pipe. Rescue volunteers worked for three days straight trying to clear the rubble and recover the bodies of those inside.
Included in the deceased were Rush H. Berry, vice president and treasurer, and Labon E. Berry, secretary and general manager. President Willard Wigley stood as the only surviving executive of the company, and he was soon hospitalized in Dallas for leukemia. With all its leadership deceased or incapacitated, the R. T. Dennis Board of Directors decided to close the company for good and to liquidate the remaining stock in Hillsboro, Temple, and Bryan. In a somber address, the granddaughter of R. T. Dennis and chairwoman of the board, Mrs. William Sloane, broke the news to the public in October 1953 that R. T. Dennis and Co., Inc., would not reopen. The historical marker of the tornado is located near the former R. T. Dennis building location.
Though the memory of R. T. Dennis and Co. will forever be linked to the 1953 tornado, the company was a source of light and prosperity in Waco for decades through its dedication to the community and quality service.
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]]>In its early days in the 1920s, Castle Heights was just a grassy hill at the end of the streetcar line, with a clear view of the Amicable building downtown. The city of Waco has since grown miles beyond the hill, and oaks and magnolia trees have grown up to shade the neighborhood. Through the decades, Castle Heights has remained a prime address for the Waco establishment, impervious to inner-city blight.
Castle Heights has an unusually strong identity as a neighborhood. The construction of the earliest homes, circa 1888, lay outside Waco city limits, and when developers plotted the neighborhood in 1923, they expected it to serve as an elite residential area marketed to the professional and upper class. Residents fought back in court in the 1930s when Waco sought to annex them. The neighborhood incorporated as the Village of Castle Heights in 1939 and elected a mayor, A. Baker Duncan, father of modern-day civic leader Malcolm Duncan. However, the village disbanded in 1945 and was annexed into the city of Waco.
Castle Heights, with its then-novel curving streets, was an example of the early twentieth-century City Beautiful Movement, an urban planning philosophy that sought to link social issues to architectural design and encourage civic pride and engagement. Large plots of land with space for big backyards and attached garages attracted potential residents.
The eclectic architectural styles of Castle Heights provide good examples of design from several different time periods, including Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Spanish Eclectic Revival, and Minimal Traditional homes. Following World War II, the neighborhood saw a large boom in construction of homes in the ranch style. Many houses are also notable because they were designed by famous Waco architectural firms such as Birch D. Easterwood and Son, or designer of the Amicable building, Roy Lane.
Through over a decade of effort by neighborhood leaders, Castle Heights became Waco’s first historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The district included on the historical marker encompasses most of the area north of Austin Avenue from Thirty-Third Street to Thirty-Ninth Street, including Cottonland Castle, the 1890s Gothic stone structure on Austin Avenue that gave the neighborhood its name.
Today, Castle Heights remains one of the most sought-out neighborhoods in the city. Its well-preserved homes serve as physical evidence of twentieth-century architectural and urban design in Waco.
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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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]]>As one of the first churches built west of Eighth Street, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church has been a center of spiritual growth and community outreach for over one hundred years.
Having decided that the congregation at Waco’s Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now First United Methodist Church) had grown too large, its members petitioned the denominational conference for a church plant. Recognizing the aforementioned need, the quarterly conference approved the establishment of Austin Avenue Methodist Church on December 31, 1900. Dr. John R. Nelson, the incumbent pastor at Fifth Street, took the lead in organizing the new church.
To house the new church, the building committee purchased three lots on the southwest corner of Twelfth Street and Austin Avenue and commissioned architect Charles Bowman to build the sanctuary for $25,000. The main auditorium seated six hundred. The church building also included a special auditorium for Sunday school classes, a pastor’s study, a choir room, and a ladies’ parlor complete with a dining room and kitchen. The first service in the new sanctuary took place on April 13, 1902, despite the fact the stained glass windows had not yet arrived.
As the church grew alongside prosperous downtown Waco in the early twentieth century, church leaders decided a larger property was needed. After much fundraising, church leaders purchased two pieces of land at Thirteenth Street and Austin Avenue and hired architect R. H. Hunt to construct a two-story structure inspired by gothic architecture at a cost of $350,000. The new sanctuary was completed in 1925.
On Saturday, November 13, 1954, tragedy struck Austin Avenue Methodist Church in the form of a terrible fire. Though firemen fought to save the sanctuary, the blaze consumed the worship space and its roof collapsed. The adjacent educational building was spared from the flames but suffered extensive water damage. Shaken but undeterred by the disaster, the congregation assembled the next day at the Twenty-Fifth Street Theater to worship and hear a sermon titled “Fortunate People” by incumbent Pastor Dr. G. Alfred Brown.
Austin Avenue Methodist Church’s sanctuary and educational building reopened to congregants on March 11, 1956. The rebuilt worship space featured aesthetic improvements such as walnut paneling, wall-to-wall carpeting, and forty-eight beautiful stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of Christ and important Christian symbols. The new three-story educational building contained ten large department rooms, nine restrooms, and three kitchenettes. These facilities continue to be central to congregational life well into the twenty-first century, although renovations occurred in the 1980s to accommodate the growing body of worshippers. In 1968, Austin Avenue Methodist Church became formally known as Austin Avenue United Methodist Church. The name change marked the merger of the Methodist denomination with the Evangelical United Brethren.
Over its long history, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church has served the greater community of Waco with a variety of outreach programs. During the Great Depression, the church established a soup kitchen to help feed local individuals and families hardest hit by the economic downturn. From 1942 to 1945, Austin Avenue contributed to the World War II home front by hosting Sunday evening programs and dinners for visiting servicemen. Congregation member Maybelle Rice even took on the role of wedding planner, happily organizing many a marriage ceremony held within the church for active-duty soldiers and their sweethearts. Austin Avenue’s commitment to American servicemen continued during the Korean War (1951-1953) as the church hosted parties each Friday night for the homesick cadets stationed at James Connally Air Force Base. In the aftermath of the 1953 F-5 tornado that devastated Waco’s downtown, Austin Avenue Methodist Church served as one of the main distribution centers for relief donations. Seeking to make better use of its resources in the mid-1970s, the church opened a kindergarten in its education building and used its kitchen to participate in the Meals on Wheels program. Two years later, a preschool was added to the kindergarten and the administrative board approved the adoption of Montessori-style instruction for those childcare facilities. Austin Avenue Montessori School remained at the location until 1993. To further meet the childcare needs of the community, the church started a Parents’ Day Out program in January of 1980.
In 1990, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church received an official Texas Historical Commission Marker.
As one of the first houses of worship established past Eighth Street, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church--which "reunited" with First Methodist in July 2019--continues to serve downtown Waco well into the twenty-first century.
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]]>The Old Corner Drugstore is the birthplace of Dr Pepper. In 1885, Morrison’s Old Corner Drugstore introduced Dr Pepper to customers who eagerly drank the sweet concoction of twenty-three different flavors. Located at 329 Austin Avenue on the bottom floor of the McClelland Hotel, there could be no better first home for the future “King of Beverages” than the heart of Waco’s financial district.
Throughout the early 1880s, Waco drugstores such as Tucker’s Lion Drug Store, Risher’s Drug Store, and Castle and Company vied to win the affection of customers. During this period of intense competition, Wade Morrison moved to Waco to become a partner in Castle and Company. In what turned out to be a fateful business move, Morrison hired Charles Alderton, another recent arrival in Waco, to be the pharmacist at his drugstore now exclusively known as Morrison’s Old Corner Drugstore.
While the pharmaceutical offerings of the Old Corner Drugstore were its mainstay, its soda fountain became a popular hangout for children and adults alike. At a time when people widely believed in the medicinal properties of carbonated drinks, it is not surprising that Alderton devoted as much time to devising interesting drinks for customers to try as he did dispensing medicine. One day by chance he hit upon the perfect combination of twenty-three flavors, creating the popular drink that customers at the Old Corner Drugstore originally referred to as “a Waco.” Morrison named the drink Dr Pepper and applied for a patent stating the original date of creation as December 1, 1885. Eventually outside demand for the Dr Pepper syrup outstripped the ability of the Old Corner Drugstore to meet it, so Morrison relocated the syrup’s production to a building on the corner of Fifth and Mary, the site of the current Dr Pepper Museum.
Sensing that the business landscape of the community was changing, Morrison decided to move the Old Corner Drugstore away from the McClelland Hotel. In 1912, he opened the doors to the new Old Corner Drugstore location next door to the towering Amicable Life Insurance building (now known as the ALICO building). Relocating the Old Corner Drugstore next to Waco’s only skyscraper proved to be an astute business move for Wade Morrison, as the then tallest building west of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason-Dixie line drew in significant foot traffic to the storefront.
Morrison’s death in 1924 did not lead to the immediate closure of the Old Corner Drugstore. The store continued to operate over the next twenty years under various owners.
Although the memory of the Old Corner Drugstore lives on today, both of its physical locations are no more. In 1953, both sites suffered severe damage as a result of the F5 tornado that struck downtown Waco on May 11. The former location of each now serves the Waco community as part of its parking infrastructure.
For more information about the Old Corner Drugstore, visit the Dr Pepper Museum. To learn more about the museum, visit www.drpeppermuseum.com.
]]>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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]]>Faced with decreased business and enormous renovation costs, the brothers decided to sell the restaurant in 1986. David Tinsley, a well-known Texan restaurateur, purchased the Elite Café for approximately $1.3 million and refurbished the restaurant with help from his managing partner, Sammy Citrano. Though the pair recognized the risk in attempting to revive the Elite, they decided to purchase the café and the neighboring burger joint, Health Camp, out of a sentimental attachment to the history of Waco. In 1987, the restaurant reopened with a 1950s theme, including a 1956 baby-blue Chevorlet sitting in front of the restaurant.
In 1993, Citrano left the Elite in order to run his own restaurant, becoming the head of George’s, another Waco favorite. Before leaving the Elite, Citrano recommended that Tinsley trace the history of the café through its photographs and records. In 1996, a historical marker commemorating the restaurant’s contribution to the city was placed at its location on the circle. However, business declined following Citrano’s departure, and in 1999 Tinsley sold the rights to the Elite Café to the Ford Restaurant Group. The Elite Café closed for renovations yet again.
For the next several years, the Elite Café stood empty. In 2003, the Ford Group completed renovations restoring the restaurant to its original feel. The renovations preserved the Spanish-style exterior and honored the café’s history by lining the walls with photographs from its past. The restaurant reopened with a new name: the Elite Circle Grille. For a time, the new owners experimented with a more upscale menu but soon returned to the restaurant’s staples of chicken-fried steak, burgers, and sandwiches.
Elite Circle Grille closed its doors in February 2016, but was purchased several months later by Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines. The couple auctioned off the contents of the restaurant to benefit Mission Waco’s Jubilee Food Market, then began renovations. Because the building was recognized as a historical landmark twenty years ago, efforts have been made to ensure that original character of the building remains intact. The re-envisioned restaurant, named Magnolia Table, opened for business in February 2018. It offers an assortment of breakfast and brunch items on its menu, including its popular buttermilk biscuits—made from a recipie that took Joanna Gaines over a year to develop.
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]]>Shortly after the 1936 flood waters had receded and cleanup was well under way, disaster struck Waco again. On October 4, the Liberty Building on Austin Avenue and Sixth Street exploded, fatally wounding 65-year-old janitor Warren Moore and causing an estimated $290,000 in damages to the structure, as well as those adjoining and nearby. Fortunately it happened on an early Sunday morning without the usual hustle and bustle of the busy Waco downtown area, or else casualties could have been much higher. Businesses affected by the incident included the F. W. Woolworth Co.; Law Offices of Sleeper, Boynton, and Kendall; Walgreens Drug Store; Pipkin Drug Store; and Goldstein-Migel department store. Other businesses suffered minor damage, and isolated injuries to people were reported.
A Waco News-Tribune article from October 5, 1936 detailed the Liberty Building's damages: “With its first three office floors converted into single rooms by force of the explosion Sunday morning, the Liberty building showed destruction from its basement to its roof.” The structure next door, F. W. Woolworth Co., suffered an estimated $75,000 in losses due to fire. The law office located on the fourth floor of the Liberty Building sustained serious damage. Its law library, several thousand volumes of books, was its greatest loss. The blast completely destroyed Pipkin Drug Store on the first floor. The nearby Walgreens Drug Store suffered heavy damage to its storefront and interior.
In the aftermath of the explosion, investigators wasted little time searching for the cause of such a devastating accident. One initial theory was that a massive buildup of floodwater had overburdened the city’s sewage system and triggered the blast. However, the Liberty Building’s location on Sixth Street and Austin Avenue proved to be too much of a distance from the most affected areas closer to the river for this theory to be plausible.
After almost two years of thorough investigation, engineers determined that the explosion was caused by a gas leak from a loose coupling device on a two-inch pipe in the Liberty Building’s basement. Records from gas companies showed a surge in pressure around the time of the explosion. Based on some of Warren Moore’s statements before his death, it is believed that a spark from a light switch ignited the gas leak as the janitor turned out lights before seeking assistance with the sudden gaseous odor. Unfortunately, that well-intentioned move cost him his life.
]]>Waco entered an economic slump in the aftermath of the 1953 Waco tornado, urban renewal in the 1960s, and the Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall in the 1970s and ‘80s. Many businesses either moved or closed their doors permanently during this time. Yet one business thrived during the downtown economic collapse—Tito’s Downtown Barbershop. The barbershop survived because its owner, Santos “Tito” Martinez, provided motivation for customers to come downtown for haircuts through his customer service.
For Tito, cutting hair is not merely a means of employment, but also the art of human interaction. His dedication to his customers is the reason why his barbershop has flourished.
Tito entered into the barber trade in 1957, at the age of twenty, following a brief stint with the former William Cameron Company. “Get in. It’s good. You’ll learn something,” Tito recollected his friend, Joe Gutierrez, saying while trying to persuade him to enter the Waco Barber College as he was walking one day. After six months of training and a brief trip to Austin for the examination, Tito began cutting hair professionally at a barbershop on South Third Street on the city square.
Yet the United States government had another plan for Tito. Just eight months after beginning his new trade, the US Army drafted him as a medic to serve in Korea during peacetime operations. Though his situation had changed, Tito continued to practice his barber trade while in the service.
Following his discharge in 1961 and a brief stint working in a barbershop owned by Manuel Cruz on Jefferson Avenue, Tito found a new home for his own barbershop on Austin Avenue between Third and Fourth streets. Nearly seven years later, he moved to his current location in the National Lloyds Building located near the corner of Austin Avenue and Ninth Street.
Inside his current barbershop, numerous photographs of people hang along the walls, small black-and-white testimonies to the many relationships Tito has formed over the years as one of Waco’s longest-serving barbers. A majority of these photographs are of his family. He frequently enjoys sharing his pride for them and the joy they bring to his life with his customers.
There are also two small oatmeal-colored business cards that rest inside the bottom left corner of his mirror. They are among Tito’s most cherished items. Written on the cards are the names of Lyndon Lowell Olson Jr., former United States Ambassador to Sweden, and the late Bernard Rapoport, famed philanthropist and founder of the American Income Life Insurance Company. Tito considers each of these men to be among the many friends he has made over the years.
Tito recalled, “Some people say, Well how come you don’t have appointments? And Mr. Rapoport and Lyndon says, What do you want an appointment for? You sit and talk and enjoy yourself.” Both of these men understood that you came to Tito’s Barbershop primarily for a good chat and then a haircut.
Looking back Tito said, “You know, really I say, in my business, I enjoy it, what I do. That’s why I still come down here. I believe it’s good to get out and meet people and talk to people.”
Tito has no intentions to quit his beloved occupation anytime soon, planning to continue his conversations and haircuts for years to come. He and his barbershop serve as a testimony to the way in which some businesses were able to weather tough economic times through their dedication to customers and the community.
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]]>Completed in 1970, the Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall opened to high expectations. The City of Waco created the pedestrian mall in an effort to bring consumers back to the downtown district, closing down the street to automobiles and only allowing foot traffic. The Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall featured walkways connecting many stores in one central location. After a 1953 tornado wiped out much of the city's downtown commercial life, Waco's Downtown Merchants Association proposed the creation of a pedestrian mall to lure Wacoans back into the traditional commercial district and away from the suburban shopping centers. In 1958, the City of Waco became one of thousands of cities to participate in the nationwide urban renewal program. Urban Renewal efforts in Waco aimed to clear blighted areas around the city including homes, buildings, and city streets, forcing many citizens and businesses to relocate.
The downtown district was one of the areas chosen for Urban Renewal in 1968. According to a city planning report from 1966, the attitude of downtown merchants had been one of discouragement, with clerks uninterested in making sales and large numbers of panhandlers downtown. The Urban Renewal Agency of Waco aimed to remedy this situation, and began efforts to restore downtown Waco through was became known as the Brazos Project. The Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall was to be the central feature in the Brazos Urban Renewal district, which would cover 155 acres from 12th Street to the river, between Washington and Franklin avenues. The project awarded to Young Brothers Inc. in December 1969 and cost upwards of $850,000. When the mall was formally dedicated in January 1971, cars were banned from the area of Fifth to Ninth streets until the Waco City Council voted in February 1979 to reopen the Austin Avenue to vehicle traffic going one-way. Though the construction of the mall heralded a brighter future for the downtown district to the citizens of Waco, they were ultimately disappointed, and the Pedestrian mall proved a failure.
The reasons for the decline of the mall are numerous. For instance, customers could only enter the walkway of the mall by parking their vehicles outside and walking in through the back of a store. Parking for the mall was supposed to be "available, convenient and free," but those plans were never formulated. Inclement weather also proved to be a major issue since store awnings provided little cover from rain, and the hot days of Central Texas summers made the concrete structure unbearable for people to visit. By 1984, few pedestrians walked the closed-off streets, and even fewer made purchases. The perception of downtown business in Waco was so poor that a Waco Tribune-Herald article sarcastically noted that the debate about reopening Austin Avenue to traffic drew more attention to the mall and downtown Waco than it had received in years, and that the “pigeons have had no trouble keeping the right-of-way.”
In a nation where city planners attempted to renew the modern landscape, the Austin Avenue Mall was not the only pedestrian mall to fail. City planners throughout the country wanted all centers of government, businesses, and social life to be located in a single strong operating area. They believed the pedestrian malls would attract customers to downtown, and these customers would then make use of other services in the area while visiting retailers. The planners failed to realize that the automobile was changing the way people commuted, shopped, and went about most daily routines. Citizens were able to move farther away from city centers, and many retailers themselves moved to the suburbs as well. The late 1960s and 70s saw numerous new strip malls and businesses relocate to the residential neighborhoods across Waco and across the nation. The Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall fell victim to this poor climate for downtown city life. Though city officials hoped the mall would reinvigorate downtown, it merely sped its decline. Only the most resilient merchants remained downtown following the reopening of Austin Avenue to traffic. Today, Waco’s city planners strive to revive downtown life, especially along Austin Avenue, through the preservation of historic buildings, bringing in more merchants and businesses, and bringing back the traditional pedestrian experience of downtown.
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]]>For over a century, the Baylor University Homecoming Parade has played an important role in the relationship between the institution, its alumni, and the greater Waco community. The tradition began in the fall of 1909, when Baylor alumni received a postcard inviting them to return home to campus in order to rekindle school spirit and renew former friendships. This announcement of Baylor’s first homecoming drew hundreds of alumni back to campus on Thanksgiving weekend for what would become one of university’s largest celebrations. The weekend included concerts, class reunions, speeches by professors, and, on the morning of the last football game of the season, a grand parade through downtown.
The Baylor Processional of 1909 began by heading west on Washington Avenue, continuing to Austin Avenue, and traveling along the city’s major streets before arriving on campus for the game’s kickoff. Nearly twenty-five blocks of participants lined the streets, eager to share their school spirit. Led by the university’s marching band, the processional included faculty, the football team, and various student organizations. Automobiles and carriages decorated with green and gold pennants and yellow chrysanthemums carried dignitaries such as the university president, Samuel Palmer Brooks, and notable alumni.
The greater Waco community also took part in the homecoming parade since its debut. Shopkeepers and restaurant owners downtown decorated their storefronts with green and gold and joined the throng lining the streets as the parade passed through downtown. Some even joined the processional, setting a precedent for cooperation between the Waco community and the university. Alessandro’s Band, a family brass ensemble who regularly held concerts in venues such as the Brazos city riverboats and the Texas Cotton Palace, performed and marched in the 1909 processional.
Baylor Homecoming was not initially conceived as an annual event. The next homecoming parade did not occur until 1915, held to mark the seventieth anniversary of the founding of Baylor University. Floats first appeared in the parade that year. One 1915 float depicted a freshman entering a hall and exiting as a senior. By the 1920s, floats became the standard method of transportation during the parade, often portraying patriotic themes. In the 1915 parade, the Baylor mascot also made its debut. In the months preceding the festivities, students voted on their choice of mascot and the bear was revealed as the winner over options such as the antelope, buffalo, and ferret.
Baylor’s 1924 football season was so successful that the Baylor Alumni Association voted to make the homecoming celebration an annual event. The basic elements of the homecoming parade remained constant from the 1920s forward, although each year the alumni association sought to outdo the previous years’ celebration.
Escalating international tensions in the 1940s cast a shadow over university activities. All male students between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five were required to register with the military, and many were called away from their studies to serve in the war. From 1943 to 1945, the alumni association canceled the homecoming celebrations in order to best preserve supplies during times of dire shortages. As the war came to a close, the alumni association put plans into motion for the “greatest parade to date” in 1946. It promoted not only Baylor spirit but also celebrated soldiers returning home and the end of the war.
Baylor’s homecoming celebrations have continued annually since the end of World War II, and in 2009, Baylor celebrated its homecoming centennial. The parade has grown to include dozens of student organizations, local businesses, and Waco high schools. Now, each fall is marked by this grand and time-honored spectacle, an essential element in the fabric of the university and greater community.
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]]>After the Amicable Life Insurance Company opened for business on April 2, 1910, the owners began searching for a location to house their new business. The owners of First National Bank, located at Fifth Street and Austin Avenue, also served as members of the board of trustees for the Amicable Life Insurance Company (ALICO). The bank owners decided to sell their lot to ALICO, and in 1910, the insurance company demolished the old bank to break ground for the new building.
Construction began in August of 1910 on what was originally planned to be an eight-story building. Yet when the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas planned a taller building, ALICO increased the number of floors to seventeen. The hotel also increased its planned height, and ALICO ultimately decided to construct a twenty-two-story building. Construction finished exactly one year later in August of 1911. The Amicable building stood out from other buildings in the South in many ways. Though most buildings at this time were composed of concrete or masonry, the Amicable building boasted a steel frame. Also, the elevator system within was quite advanced for the time. In addition to these modern innovations, the ALICO building stood as the tallest building west of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason-Dixon line until 1929.
The building itself stands for the strength and stability of the Waco community and of downtown. While many businesses have come and gone throughout the history of downtown Waco, the ALICO building has stood strong since its creation in 1910. It weathered everything in Waco, from the Waco tornado of 1953 to urban renewal. The architects, Sanguinet and Staats of Fort Worth and Roy E. Lane of Waco, wanted to design a building that could survive any major catastrophe. They designed the building with a steel frame that could resist a hurricane-force wind. The bottom half of the outer façade was composed of granite and other stone, while the top was made of brick and terra cotta. It was designed to be sturdy but to have a look that was classic and appealing to the eye.
The first few floors of the building housed the First National Bank. The fourth floor through the twentieth all contained the same floor plan for office spaces, while floors above the twentieth consisted mostly of storage space. The Amicable building became the center of downtown, making its office space highly desirable and the shopping center immensely popular. People came to the Amicable building not only to shop but often just to marvel at the building itself. Until the mid-1940s, the ALICO building was bustling and full of offices that were not necessarily ALICO offices. For instance, radio station WACO was founded on the eighth floor of the building. This changed when the Amicable Life Insurance Company rapidly grew and needed to start buying back some of the offices because of their growing need for space.
The ALICO building has not only served as office space, however. The tower became Waco's crisis center following the 1953 tornado that struck the surrounding downtown area and claimed 114 lives. The building suffered only superficial damage and, having been built with its own generator, was the only major downtown structure with electricity. Medical and military officials coordinated search parties and rescue efforts from the First National Bank on the ground floor.
In 1982, the Texas State Historical Commission designated the ALICO building a historical landmark. The state uses this program to commemorate and preserve sites that have impacted state history. The first of its kind in the Southwest, the ALICO building became the focal point of activity in Waco for generations. Today, the ALICO building still towers above the Waco skyline, holding the offices of the now American-Amicable Life Insurance Company of Texas, as well as providing office space for other businesses located in downtown Waco.
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