According to founding Junior League member Margaret Barclay Megarity, mid-twentieth-century service opportunities for young women in Waco were limited to society luncheons and church-sponsored activities primarily run by older women. Frustrated and desiring to organize more public service avenues, Megarity invited nine women to her home on December 12, 1935, to discuss creating a new organization.

The fruits of that first gathering were almost immediately tangible. Thirty women attended the first official meeting of the Junior Service League of Waco on January 1, 1936. These founding members drew up a constitution for an organization meant to provide young women with a better understanding of their community, its needs, and its problems. Within one month of drawing up the constitution, the organization began its work in the community.

Children have long served as the focus of the service organization. The first function of the Junior Service League raised $36 (equivalent to nearly $615 in contemporary currency) to provide children’s shoes for Waco’s needy families. In the near century of service which followed, the organization pursued projects such as establishing a children’s symphony, providing resources for clients of Child Protective Services caseworkers, volunteering in children’s hospitals, and providing a playground in Cameron Park.

Though certainly proud of the projects accomplished by the league, leaders often spoke of the organization’s goal as being centered upon training volunteers to become active members in their community. In 1946, the Waco service group incorporated with the Association of Junior Leagues International, becoming the Junior League of Waco. From this time forward, new provisional members underwent an intensive, year-long course in community volunteer service. As early as 1959, the course consisted of two main parts: a history of the Leagues of America, and a history of Waco. The first portion consisted of lectures on the history of the leagues and working in Fort House, the Volunteer Service Bureau, and the Strecker Museum. The second half of the course consisted of lectures on Waco’s background and development, as well as on welfare and public health. Provisional members also toured the city, visiting school administrations, city commissioner meetings, and school board meetings. Information and skills gained from these training measures allowed members to serve the community in the most effective manner.

Despite its focus upon children, the Junior League remained involved in other aspects of the Waco community, as well. In 1956, the group purchased and restored Fort House, one of the historic homes dating back to the Civil War. The organization ultimately decided to turn the deed over to the Waco Society for Historic Preservation (later Historic Waco Foundation) after realizing the home’s historic value. The Junior League later purchased and restored another home, the Clifton House. Today, this historic house (noted on the Waco History map) continues to serve as the Waco chapter’s base of operations.

The reach of the Junior League’s programs is vast. Over decades of service, the group has aided numerous organizations throughout Waco such as the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children, Mission Waco, the Waco Independent School District, the Waco Hippodrome, Compassion Ministries, and many others. Today, the Junior League continues to serve the local community through its dedication to providing well-trained volunteers desiring to work for the good of the community. 

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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.

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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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