Willie Durham House, an extraordinary person, devoted public servant, and gifted administrator, played a pivotal role in the establishment of two of Waco’s most essential institutions — free public schools and the Waco-McLennan County Library.
Born in 1856 in Austin County, Willie Durham was the only child of Dr. and Mrs. M.S. Durham. When the Durham family moved to Brenham, she attended schools there until her marriage at age 16 to J.A. House. The couple had one child, a daughter, Lolabel.
Whether J.A. died or deserted the family is unknown, but with a young, precocious daughter to support, Willie entered one of the few fields open to women in those days: teaching. Possessed with a great thirst for knowledge, House, in 1878, somehow cobbled together the resources to enroll in the University of Nashville’s Peabody Normal School which had been established to empower teachers.
Upon graduation, the Texas State Board of Education hired House to administer Summer Normal Services (meaning all education and administrative services that go on during the summer months) in Mineola, Victoria, Marshall, and Lampasas. She returned briefly to the classroom in Tyler, then the fledgling Waco public school district hired her in 1884 as the principal of the city’s third ward school. She was just 28 years old. Within a few years, House became vice president and secretary of the Texas State Teacher’s Association, founded in 1880 to further the cause of education in Texas.
From this point forward, House’s name appears hundreds of times in the Waco newspapers, including The Day, The News-Tribune and others — she’s everywhere, speaking, encouraging, raising money for schools, spearheading the campaign for women to vote and working with businessman Isaac A. Goldstein to bring a Carnegie Library to Waco.
When A.A. McGregor was elected superintendent by the School Committee of the Waco City Council, he vigorously crusaded for public schools — Black and white — continually going to the press and city council meetings to push for better salaries, facilities, and working conditions for teachers and administrators. The city council eventually fired McGregor in 1888. Her fellow teachers and administrators strongly supported House for the position. The Council, however, wanted another male superintendent.
On June 3, 1888, Waco newspaper The Day reports that the Council was reluctant to support House’s appointment because she was a woman. We don’t know what changed the Council’s mind, but on July 13, a follow-up article appears, heralding her election to the position and commending her on her qualifications for the role.
House immediately set to work in the Waco schools — improving record-keeping, tackling maintenance issues, expanding the curriculum, and encouraging and equipping students, staff, and faculty alike in a school district that was one of the largest in Texas. She was also the lowest paid superintendent of schools in Texas, making about $2,000 a year, while many other superintendents made closer to $2500.
It was too good to last. When the City Council deeded authority over public schools to the newly formed Waco School Commissioners in 1893, House was summarily replaced and demoted to campus principal. Leading the charge against House was Waco businessman Edward Rotan, who headed up an opposition “ticket.” House returned again to the classroom.
Within a year, the all-male school board declared that only men could be principals in Waco schools. The following year, it decreed that all female teachers must be single and that, should they marry, it would be a declaration of resignation from Waco schools.
In 1904, when the beautiful Carnegie Library opened on Twelfth Street and Austin Avenue, House accepted a position as Waco’s first full-time librarian.
Once again, House encountered opposition, this time from the Waco City Council. Despite the city’s pledges of support with the original grant application, the Council provided minimal support to the library, publicly dismissing it as a playground for children and a storehouse of cheap novels. Consequently, House was again forced to spend much of her time fundraising.
Eventually, she had had enough.
In 1907, House accepted a position with the filing and stenographic division of the Workman’s Compensation Commission in Brooklyn and rapidly rose through the ranks to the position of “chief” of the division. A Waco Times-Herald article from June 7, 1914, reported that her promotion was to “the most important position held by a woman in business circles of New York state.”
When House died in July 1926 at the age of 69, her obituary appeared in both The Brooklyn Eagle and New York Times, as well as different Waco newspapers. Her daughter Lolabel House Hall, Ph.D., an educator respected in both the Waco and New York school systems, brought her mother’s remains to Waco for burial in Oakwood Cemetery and read from a framed letter of tribute from the very commissioners that once fired her, calling her a “remarkable woman.”
When Lolabel herself died in May 1946 after a lifetime of advocating on behalf of education and women’s rights, The Waco Tribune-Herald cited both women in an accompanying editorial:
With her mother, the late Mrs. Willie Durham House, a strong personality well-remembered by old-timers, Mrs. House was one of the early workers for women’s suffrage. It is due to the activity of those two women and many other like them that women are able to vote in this country. We accept the fact of women’s votes without question now. It is hard to imagine the campaign that had to be waged by women like Dr. [Lolabel] Hall and Mrs. House to make that fact come to pass.
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]]>One of the most beautiful buildings on Baylor University’s campus is the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum. Sources such as Campus Grotto and Flavorwire have named the library to their lists of the fifty most beautiful libraries in the United States and in the world, respectively. The three-story Italian renaissance style building houses the world’s largest collection of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning material. Collected by Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong throughout his life, the artifacts have resided in the Armstrong Browning Library since its opening in 1951.
Born in 1873 in Louisville, Kentucky, A.J. Armstrong grew up wanting to be a college professor. He lost his father when he was fourteen, so when his mother fell ill a few years later, he delayed his college education to care for her. She died when he was twenty-six, and he began his studies at Wabash College. After he graduated in 1902, he accepted a position teaching English at East Texas Baptist Institute, where he met his future wife, fellow English teacher Mary Maxwell. Armstrong went on to earn his doctorate from University of Pennsylvania in 1908. That same year he accepted an interim teaching position at Baylor University. After three years teaching at Georgetown College, he returned to Baylor as the chair of the English department.
Dr. Armstrong possessed an interest in Robert Browning from an early age. Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, were two of the greatest of the English Victorian poets. A master of dramatic monologue and psychological portraiture, Browning was a prolific poet, writing hundreds of poems and eight plays in verse.
Around 1905, Armstrong began to collect Browning's writings. His interest grew greatly upon his meeting the Brownings’ only son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, called Pen, on a visit to Italy in 1909, and he resolved to collect every artifact he could. When Pen died in 1912 without a will, Sotheby’s auction house in London sold off the Browning estate. Armstrong was able to acquire a copy of the sale catalogue, including sale prices and purchasers, from a Sotheby staff member named E.H. Courville. From this starting point, Armstrong began to track down the Browning effects to bolster his fast-growing collection of Browning writings and relics.
Armstrong donated his collection of Browning materials to Baylor in 1918. Throughout his life, he continued to track down Browning artifacts, funding his passion with donations, gifts, and profits from events he hosted on campus. Many of these events were live readings, concerts, or dramatizations, featuring poets, musicians, actors, politicians, and scholars such as Robert Frost, Basil Rathbone, W.B. Yeats, Vachel Lindsay, William Taft, and Katharine Cornell. The university kept the Browning materials in Carroll Library, and designated a Browning Room to house the collection after the 1924 building renovation.
The collection grew quickly, and in 1943 Baylor President Pat Neff provided $100,000 to begin work on a new library to house the artifacts. Dr. Armstrong took upon himself the task of raising the remaining money. With the aid of his wife, Mary, he began an enormous fundraising campaign, writing to alumni, colleagues, politicians, and celebrities for whatever donation they could spare. Each letter he wrote was personal, and each gift was recognized with a thank you note. According to Dr. Armstrong, one person out of every four asked provided a donation. Several local and campus groups with which Dr. Armstrong was involved sponsored specific features of the building. For example, Dr. Armstrong’s Literature Survey class funded the front stairs, and the Tuesday Club of Brady, Texas and Mr. & Mrs. John Leddy-Jones of Dallas donated the Pippa statue on the front lawn.
Five years later, having obtained the $1.75 million dollars necessary for the construction of the building, the university held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Armstrong Browning Library. In 1950, about halfway through the building’s construction, a second ceremony was held for supporters to place keepsakes such as pictures, books, and papers in the library’s cornerstone along with a list of the 5,117 individuals that contributed to the Browning fund. Finally, in December of 1951, the library officially opened to the public. By now, Dr. Armstrong’s collection was the biggest collection of Browningiana in the world.
The library stands three floors high. Its majestic Italian Renaissance architecture serves as a stunning backdrop for the thousands of artifacts housed within its walls. The Armstrong Browning stained glass collection is the largest collection of secular stained glass in the world, featuring sixty-two stained glass windows depicting the lives and poetry of the Brownings. The ground floor of the library underwent renovation in 1995. Until then, the first floor held offices and classrooms for the English department, while the second and third displayed the various Browning materials. The ground floor now houses the Cox Reception Hall, the ABL Gift Gallery, the Mary Armstrong Seminar Room, the Lewis-Birkhead Lecture Hall, and climate-controlled book stacks. The second floor holds the Martin Entrance Foyer, the Hankamer Treasure Room, the John Leddy-Jones Research Hall, the McLean Foyer of Meditation, and the Cloister of the Clasped Hands, which holds a bronze cast of the hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barett Browning done by artist Harriet Hosmer. The stairwell joining the three floors holds a collection of paintings by Pen Browning. The third floor boasts the Austin Moore-Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon and the Belew Scholars’ Room (originally Dr. Armstrong’s personal classroom) as well as a balcony overlooking the Foyer of Meditation. Spaces found outside the building include the Garden of Contentment, added in 2012, and an amphitheater.
The Armstrong Browning Library & Museum is a testament to how the tireless effort of one person can accomplish a lofty goal. The library continues to inspire students, scholars, poets, and tourists with its beauty and resources.
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]]>Baylor University was the first coeducational university in the South, and only the second in the country. Even so, the education women received at Baylor for many years was fundamentally different than the men’s. Women stayed within the bounds of the more “feminine” degrees such as education or music, and access to on-campus organizations was severely limited. Female students were held to high standards and kept under close supervision by the Dean of Women. They had to adhere to a strict dress code (superintendents could remove undesirable clothing from student’s closets), attend Sunday school and church services every Sunday, sign out any time they left campus, observe a strict curfew, and keep good grades in order to be allowed to date, ride in a car, or leave campus.
As women’s rights activists made headway in the early twentieth century, coed institutions received more and more female applicants. Baylor was no exception. In the 1920s, Baylor received so many applications from women that they had to turn them away due to a lack of space. At the time, Georgia Burleson Hall and a few small annexes were the only women’s residential spaces on campus, and women who were not from Waco were not allowed to live off campus due to university administration’s desire to keep them protected and out of trouble. The male students, by comparison, were not subject to the same levels of supervision as the women and were trusted to live off campus. The ones that did live on campus were housed in then-brand-new Brooks Hall.
Despite being advertised as better than the accommodations at other universities, Burleson Hall was cramped, leaky, outdated, and only housed around 200 women, and the annexes could hold around 200 altogether. In the mid-1920s, the number of women enrolled at Baylor was around one thousand. In light of this space issue, President Samuel Palmer Brooks began planning the addition of a new women’s dormitory. The Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, having observed the piety and Christian attitudes of Baylor students, took an interest and pledged to help the university raise funds for this new building. They advertised in Waco newspapers to secure donations from the community, and sororities on campus aided them with fundraisers.
In 1928, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the new dormitory on the corner of Seventh and Speight. Baylor alumna, renowned author, and Columbia University professor Dorothy Scarborough addressed the spectators at this event. Scarborough emphasized the importance of remembering the exceptional women in Baylor’s history and made a commitment to be present at similar events in the future. Baylor administrators overseeing the project hoped that the groundbreaking might serve as a reminder to the community that the project was still underway, and hopefully inspire them to resume their donations, which had decreased significantly.
Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, named in honor of the Woman’s Missionary Union, was finished in 1930 and cost approximately $350,000. Securing funding for this project was no small feat, as at this time the country was suffering in the early days of the Great Depression. At this time, the building could house 245 women, and boasted a dining hall, a chapel, a study hall, and two banquet rooms. On October 15, 1930, the university suspended classes for two hours so that faculty, staff, and students could attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new dormitory. President Brooks, speaking at this ceremony, thanked the Woman’s Missionary Union for making the idea for the new dormitory into a reality, and further thanked all the women of Texas for their contributions to the project. Mrs. F. S. Davis, president of the Woman’s Missionary Union, also addressed the attendees, speaking of her hopes that the women of the dormitory would grow in their faith and be strong, Christian leaders in their community. “The fervent prayer,” she said, “that wells up from the heart of the Women’s Missionary Union today is that ‘our daughters may be as polished cornerstones after the similitude of a palace.’ For truly you, our daughters, are our glory and our crown.”
In 2005, Memorial and neighboring hall Alexander became home to the university’s Honors College Living and Learning Community, or HC-LLC (often called the Hick-Lick), with Memorial housing the women and Alexander housing the men. Four years later the university upgraded the community to the status of residential college. The Honors Residential College is known across campus for its tight-knit community, goofy traditions, and, in the words of one former Baylor professor,its “common love of uncommon things.” In 2023, the university renovated both Memorial and Alexander, updating facilities, rooms, and common spaces, as well as adding the new Carona Family Commons, a two-floor shared common area connecting the two buildings.
Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, now simply called Memorial Hall, has been a welcoming home away from home to Baylor women for almost 100 years. Memorial was instrumental in improving women’s access to education at Baylor when it was built, and the impact it and its founders had on the university is still visible.
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]]>Since the nineteenth century, Waco has been renowned for the quality and number of higher education institutions in the city and surrounding area. Despite this reputation, the Waco area did not boast its own junior college until the 1960s.
The idea of starting a junior college in Waco originated with Waco Chamber of Commerce member Paul Marable. When Marable joined the chamber, one of his initial concerns was the lack of a junior college for the Waco community. Senior members of the chamber hesitated to bring up the discussion of a junior college, as they feared Baylor University would feel threatened by the possibility of a new institute for higher education in Waco. Marable, unfazed by these worries, went to Baylor administration and presented his idea to President Abner McCall. Rather than being offended, McCall supported the idea wholeheartedly. With this endorsement, the Chamber began to discuss the feasibility of a new junior college.
In November 1964, a steering committee appointed by the Waco Chamber of Commerce met for the first time to begin planning the creation of a new junior college. One year later, local voters approved the creation of the McLennan County Junior College Tax District and elected a seven-member governing board. The college was christened McLennan Community College (often shortened to MCC) in early 1966, making it the first junior college in Texas to incorporate as a community college. That same year, the board hired Dr. Wilbur Ball as the college's first president. Ball was well-suited to the position, having previously worked in the registrar’s office at Del Mar College and served as dean and vice president at Wharton College.
A great deal of consideration went into the selection of the college’s site. The board initially considered putting the new college downtown in an effort to promote business there, but MCC administrators, including President Ball, quickly decided that none of the buildings available downtown were suited to hold a college. School administration decided early on that the college should be in or near Waco proper, as that was the population center of the district. The college’s original temporary location was the deactivated James Connally Air Force Base, which it shared with the newly opened Texas State Technical College (then called the James Connally Technical Institute).
MCC held its first day of classes in September 1966. When the college opened, it boasted twenty-two faculty and had an enrollment of 858 students. MCC was open enrollment, and in its first year of operation a significant portion of the student body were minority students. In order to reflect this, MCC sought out minorities when hiring faculty as well. Ms. Ezra Henderson, a Waco native and one of the college’s original faculty members in 1966, was the first African American faculty member at MCC.
The board approved the selection of the historic William Cameron property, comprising 200 acres, for MCC’s permanent site in 1966. They acquired the land for $290,000. Construction on new, permanent facilities on the Cameron property began in 1967 and finished in 1969, with classes began at the new location that January. The next year, legislature approved a $4,000,000 bond issue to build additional facilities.
MCC became the first community college in Texas to run its own police academy in 1977. In 1987, MCC bought the old Waco High School campus, which stood empty after Waco High merged with Richfield High School. The purchase added 40 acres, four tennis courts, and new school facilities to the existing campus. The old school building became the Community Services Center. The college grew quickly, expanding to 5,750 students and 165 full-time faculty by 1990. At that point, the school had become a member of the American Association of Junior Colleges, the Texas Public Junior College Association, and an affiliate member of the Association of Texas Colleges and Universities. Into the 2020s, McLennan Community College’s enrollment and number of faculty have grown to almost ten times their original size. It has made a name for itself in academic excellence and holds true to its commitment to offering a high-quality education while remaining affordable.
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]]>In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the rise of railroads and industrialization caused significant changes in the business world. The growth of corporations and big businesses led to a greater need for accountants, bookkeepers, corporate bankers, and other financial and administrative professionals. In response to this new demand, business schools teaching the skills necessary to fill these positions began to pop up across the states. Among these was a Waco institution known as Toby’s Practical Business College (or simply Toby’s Business College). Founded in 1890 by Edward Toby, the school made a name for itself as a producer of competent businessmen and upstanding citizens.
Edward Toby was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1858. When he was eighteen, he earned his degree in engineering in Virginia and entered the workforce. After spending time in New York City and New Orleans, Toby moved to Waco in 1883. After trying his hand as a salesman, grocer, clerk, and even cowboy, Toby settled into a job with Provident National Bank. In his position as head bookkeeper, he displayed remarkable professionalism and capability. In 1890, at the urging of his coworkers, he began to teach the business skills he had learned to others. For three years, he taught a few night classes a week while working at the bank during the day. Eventually, the high demand for his classes led him to quit his job at the bank and begin teaching full time.
Toby initially held classes in his home on Fifth Street. His popularity continued to grow, and in 1896 Toby’s Business College had enough students to field a football team. During the summer, he offered business classes in New York City. In 1898, the college outgrew its small room in Toby’s house, and he moved it to a rented office space on South Fourth Street. A year later, the school received its charter with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars. In 1910, he built a new four-story building on the corner of Fourth Street and Webster Avenue. The college grew to be one of the biggest business schools in the country with about 600-700 enrolled students a year.
In the numerous advertisements he purchased in newspapers and city directories, Toby marketed his school as the best education money could buy. There were several things Toby believed made his school the very best. One was his own impressive qualifications as a Certified Court Accountant, a Fellow of the Central Association of Accountants of the World, and a renowned handwriting expert. Another was his unique, hands-on approach to education. He refused to use traditional textbooks and instead wrote his own lessons, emphasizing practical experience. Another defining quality of the college was its high standards for admittance. Toby would not admit smokers, drinkers, sloppy dressers, troublemakers, or anyone who did not have at least an eighth-grade education.
The school had six departments: academics, bookkeeping, banking, shorthand, telegraphy and office appliance, and typewriting. Adjacent to the business college was Toby’s School of Correspondence. On Fridays, Toby would host symposiums where prominent businessmen or legislators would come and speak to the student body on matters such as banking, railroads, mining, or aviation, after which the students would hold a debate. The classes at the business school garnered such respect that Baylor University President Samuel Palmer Brooks often encouraged his students to take additional classes with Toby.
The school prospered until the Great Depression. The cause of its financial hardship was most likely a sharp decline in enrollment leading to a lack of profits. The school was unable to recover and closed its doors in the 1940s. Ed Toby died in 1937 at the age of 79.
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]]>Lewis “Les” Ritcherson, born in Hillsboro, Texas in 1926, was the first African American to coach at the University of Wisconsin and the second African American football coach in the Big Ten. Ritcherson began his football career at A.J. Moore High School in Waco. As a senior, he earned All-District Defensive End as Moore High took home the 1942 district title. The team’s talent caught the eye of HBCUs around Texas, and Wiley College in Marshall offered Ritcherson a football scholarship.
Ritcherson attended Wiley from 1943-1946, playing football and basketball all four years and running track for two years. Wiley had an exceptional football program and won the Southwest Athletic Conference three out of Ritcherson’s four years as a player. Wiley’s coaches, Fred and Harry Long, were renowned among Black football coaches. In 1945, the football team went 10-0 and won the Orange Blossom Classic, the national championship game for HBCU football teams, against Florida A&M. Ritcherson’s performance that season and particularly in that game led to renowned sportswriter Fay Young naming him an end on his Black All-American team, an honor that came with a five-dollar prize.
After a short stint as football and debate coach in Midland, Texas, A.J. Moore High School hired Ritcherson in 1950 as head football coach. Moore High under Ritcherson went on to be state champion in 1952 and 1965 and state co-champion in 1951 and 1960. Ritcherson, at the urging of assistant coaches and players, started his son, Lewis Ritcherson Jr., at quarterback his last three years at Moore High. Coaching at Moore High was not without its struggles. The Black teams in the area played midweek games because the white schools played on weekends. This meant that the team often had to travel as far as Dallas or even Corpus Christi on school nights, and often the team bus got in so late that players and coaches would spend the rest of the night in the school gym.
In 1966, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) sent assistant coach Deral Teteak to Texas to scout players. Teteak was impressed by Ritcherson’s coaching during his stop at Moore High, and soon after, Wisconsin Head Coach Milt Bruhn offered Ritcherson the position of receiver’s coach at the university. Although initially unsure about leaving Moore High, Ritcherson decided to take the job. He negotiated an unusual five-year contract with the university after hearing that administration might fire Bruhn the next year. Ritcherson was the first African American coach in any sport at the University of Wisconsin. At this time, Iowa’s Frank Gilliam was the only other Black football coach in the Big Ten.
As expected, the university replaced Bruhn after the 1966 season and hired John Coatta, a former Badger quarterback, to replace him. Coatta hired many of his former teammates as assistants. They greatly influenced his coaching decisions and upended the chain of command. These coaches were also extremely hard on their players, a tactic which Ritcherson felt to be unnecessary, especially when it was not improving the quality of the team.
In the sixties, considerable tension existed between Black and white students on campus, and this tension was prevalent between players and coaches on the football team. Many of the coaches treated the Black players poorly and would not pay attention to the players’ grievances. This led some of the Black players to boycott the team banquet. They also threatened to boycott a game against Minnesota, but Ritcherson felt that such an action could endanger their scholarships, and he talked them out of it. Despite the coldness of the coaching staff, the UW-Madison Athletic Board strove to help the Black players. The board even hired a psychiatrist to examine the players and coaches and suggest new ways to improve both their relationships and the team environment as a whole.
The prejudice of the other coaches affected Ritcherson as much as it affected the players. They often held meetings without him or ignored his opinion when making decisions. Ritcherson especially struggled with the lack of his peers on the staff. To remedy this, he organized the first meeting of Black coaches at predominantly white institutions at the 1970 American Football Coaches Association convention.
After he retired from coaching in 1970, Ritcherson took a job as an affirmative action officer first at UW-Extension, then back at UW-Madison. As an affirmative action officer, Ritcherson’s job was to encourage university departments to hire minorities. It was often difficult to convince departments to hire minorities because of what Ritcherson called the “old buddy system.” This meant that the departments only wanted to hire people they already knew. Despite this and other obstacles, Ritcherson made considerable progress in the university. One of his biggest successes was the program he set up with the nursing school to recruit from North Carolina A&T and Tuskegee Institute. Ritcherson was also instrumental in the creation of the Afro-American Studies Program and encouraged its administrators to hire a diverse staff.
Ritcherson retired from administration in 1990. He has since been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Champions and the Waco Independent School District Athletics Hall of Fame. When he passed away in 2019, Lewis Ritcherson had created a lasting impact both on the university and on his players. While he as an individual might not have much national renown, it was his effort and the efforts of all the Black coaches, players, and administrators that were willing to suffer injustice to set a precedent that broke the color line in college sports.
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]]>“Tumbleweed Smith,” born Bob Lewis in Waco in 1935, has made a name for himself in broadcasting throughout the state of Texas. Inspired by a tumbleweed that rolled across his West Texas lawn and his mother’s maiden name, he adopted the persona of “Tumbleweed Smith” as a radio host in 1970. Lewis’s big break came in August 1969, when he started his own radio show, The Sound of Texas. Amassing a collection of over 14,000 interviews during his long career, Lewis became the owner of the largest private collection of oral histories in the United States.
In 1944, the Lewis family moved from Waco to Fort Worth, where he spent the rest of his adolescence. He returned to Waco in 1953 to attend Baylor University, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. During his time at Baylor, Lewis joined the theater department and performed in a stage play of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which later won an award for cinematography at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.
After receiving his BA, Lewis joined the United States Army as an Army Security Agent and was stationed in Germany from 1958–1960. While in Germany, Lewis listened to the American Forces Network with his fellow soldiers. Noticing how nostalgic listening to the American radio made him and other soldiers feel inspired Lewis to find a career in broadcasting. Upon returning from Germany, Lewis settled in Waco and started his career in radio and advertising. Early on, he worked as an ad agent for William George “Dub” King, Baylor’s Sports Information Director, and worked on advertising the Heart O’Texas Fair and Rodeo. In the fall of 1960, Lewis picked up and moved to Big Spring and joined the KBST Radio team. Then in 1962 Lewis would start working for KPRC Radio and Television.
Smith married his wife Susan Zack in August of 1963 and had his first son, Robert Kevin Lewis in August of 1964. Later that year, Smith enrolled in graduate school at the University of Missouri, where he earned an MA in Journalism. After graduation, he moved to Iowa and worked for WHO Radio and Television in Des Moines. He also began working as a freelance feature reporter for NBC Radio’s Monitor. The pieces he developed in that position shaped the style of Smith’s future radio show.
Returning to Big Spring in 1967, Smith resumed his role at KBST. His second son, Brian Zack Lewis was born in 1968. Smith taught broadcasting courses at Howard College for two years. Two of his most notable students there were Alan Doelp, writer for Shocktown, one of the first prime-time emergency room television shows, and Jim Ryerson, a reporter for ABC Television’s West Coast division. After Smith was fired from his position at KBST in 1969, he began to write for Texas Parade Magazine. It was then that Smith made the biggest decision of his career and started his self-produced radio show.
The show was originally titled Tumbleweed, but in April of 1970 Lewis would change the name to The Sound of Texas and took up the radio persona of Tumbleweed Smith. By the end of the year, The Sound of Texas could be heard on ten radio stations throughout the state. The Sound of Texas would garner a decent following after being on the air for a year, with hundreds of listers tuning in to hear Tumbleweed’s interviews with eccentric characters. Episode topics ranged from conversations about high school football, women-led businesses, military history, law, politics, technology, and many other matters. Tumbleweed’s show grew in popularity throughout Texas, and in recognition of his success, he was invited to become a professor at the University of Texas-Permian Basin in 1974, where he taught until 2008. During his thirty-four years at UTPB, he taught broadcasting to thousands of students, many of whom became award-winning journalists. His students won 120 awards during his tenure, most notably the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Award in Broadcasting. After leaving UTPB in 2008, he took up a professorship at Western Texas College in Snyder, a position he stayed at until 2010.
Being a radio personality was not all Tumbleweed was known for. He was also a marketing expert, starting his own advertising company, Multimedia Advertising Company, in 1981. The company won two national awards in 1986. Tumbleweed’s production company, Orange House Productions, also garnered national recognition. The production company won six Communicators Awards, the Governor’s Tourism Award State of Texas, the 2018 W3 Award and two Telly Awards for “The Texas Torera” and “The T & P”. In addition to precuring quality interviews for his show, Tumbleweed also travels to cities all over the state, giving speeches at various academic and professional conferences and entertaining local community groups with stories.
A mentor to prominent radio personalities and television hosts and an innovator in his programming, Tumbleweed Smith earned a favorable reputation in Texas broadcasting circles. His passion for radio and interest in preserving Texas's stories pushed Tumbleweed to local stardom. His legacy persists, and his broadcasting style continues influencing radio show hosts across the state. The show highlights unique aspects of Texas culture and the people, providing a platform for underrepresented communities to connect to a wider audience. The Sound of Texas not only displays the versatility of Texans but embodies the essence of Texans. In addition to precuring quality interviews for his show, Tumbleweed travels to cities all over the state, giving speeches at various academic and professional conferences and entertaining local community groups with stories.
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]]>Despite many obstacles, Robert Gilbert offered “no excuses” when he found himself at the forefront of enacting racial integration and advancing civil rights in Waco. His efforts left an indelible mark on the city and Baylor University.
He was born on December 27, 1941, the fourth child of the Rev. B. F. Gilbert and his wife, Fannie Mae. The Gilbert household prized faith in God, education, and community service. Attending Waco’s segregated schools, Gilbert wanted to be a lawyer advancing the rights of African Americans. After graduating from A. J. Moore High School in 1960, he enrolled at Paul Quinn College. Following several years of study at Paul Quinn, Gilbert and his teachers realized a future legal career required he obtain a degree from Baylor University, which had only recently—in November 1963—voted to integrate.
Administrative and legal decisions do not generate immediate cultural change, a reality that confronted Gilbert as he began his studies at Baylor in summer 1965. The alienation and animosity he felt as a child growing up near the campus continued to form a large part of his experience as a student. He experienced isolation from his classmates, and while some faculty treated him with dignity, others proved overtly racist. Gilbert majored in history, which he enjoyed, but he soon acknowledged that a legal career was increasingly unlikely. For most of his adolescence, Gilbert resisted pastoral ministry, but soon the call to preach became too acute to ignore. In addition, doctors advised him that his poor health could not handle the stresses of practicing law.
Since the age of fourteen, Gilbert suffered from various types of arthritis that left him in constant pain and with impaired mobility. In his teens, it proved manageable with only an occasional flare-up. However, in July 1963, his condition deteriorated rapidly. Gilbert recovered and returned to college, though he now required a cane for support. Later on, joint deterioration led to numerous surgeries and eventually put him in a wheelchair. The visible specter of his arthritis plagued Gilbert for his entire life, but it also became the source of his testimony and vocation. Grappling with his arthritis proved God’s way of grabbing hold of Gilbert, calling him to a life of ministry and teaching, as well as instilling in him the faith and endurance required to overcome all impediments that lay ahead.
Gilbert’s faith-filled perseverance equipped him to break barriers and gave him an unquenchable thirst for justice. On June 2, 1967, Robert Gilbert became the first African American student to graduate from Baylor. By virtue of alphabetical order, Gilbert preceded his classmate Barbara Walker, who that day became Baylor’s first female African American graduate. After his graduation, Gilbert continued pioneering as the first black teacher at the all-white Tennyson Middle School. Another first included his summer role as assistant director of Baylor’s Upward Bound program to help train low-income students for college. Gilbert carried on all this work while also actively engaging in pastoral ministry.
To enrich his ministry, Gilbert returned to Baylor in 1970 to pursue a graduate degree in religion. However, another devastating turn in his health in 1971 left him unable to finish his studies, but not to pastor. He succeeded his father into the pulpits of Baptist churches in Bremond and Chilton, before in 1978, beginning a more than decade-long ministry at Waco’s Carver Park Missionary Baptist Church. Under his leadership, the congregation grew exponentially. Gilbert’s dynamic sermons and visible witness attracted people to him and to the gospel. His life held the power to convict and inspire, not only the people in his congregations, but all Wacoans as well.
The 1970s saw Gilbert take up his trailblazing mantel and use his status in the community to advocate for civil rights. Upset about the glacial pace of integration in Waco schools after the 1954 Brown decision, Gilbert served as the plaintiff in the NAACP case against the Waco Independent School District. His suit, combined with a similar case from Waco’s Hispanic community, became the 1973 Arvizu v. Waco ISD decision mandating the integration of several racially identifiable schools in Waco. In 1976, he was elected the first black member of Waco’s school board. Outside of education, Gilbert helmed the Association for Selective Career Opportunities that aimed to advance the hiring of minorities in fields where they were underrepresented. His experiences at the forefront of integration made him a catalyst for creating opportunities for other African Americans in Waco.
When he died on November 11, 1992, Robert Gilbert left a rich legacy of ministry and activism. In the last years of his life, through pain and numerous health struggles, he maintained his pastoral ministry, while also advocating for Waco and Baylor to diversify hiring. Today Gilbert’s communities honor his impact. For example, the Waco NAACP awards scholarships to high school graduates named for the Gilbert family. Captured by his 1988 autobiography title, No Excuses Accepted, Gilbert believed everyone was capable of achieving their goals, no matter the impediments. Grounded in faith and in pursuit of justice, he testified to that belief with his life, calling others to do the same.
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]]>On a hot Atlanta evening in July 1988, Ann Richards emerged from deep in the heart of Texas to address the Democratic National Convention as the keynote speaker. The Texas treasurer’s rousing and pointed speech—sprinkled with her characteristic one-liners—brought her national attention. It served as a turning point in her political career. Only three years later, Richards stood at another podium, this time in Austin, taking her oath of office as the forty-fifth governor of Texas.
Born Dorothy Ann Willis on September 1, 1933, in Lacy Lakeview, Richards developed an interest in civic engagement and public speaking from a young age. As a student at Waco High School, where she graduated in 1950, Richards actively participated in the debate team and in the Girls State (and Nation) program where she practiced politics in a mock government. That fall, she entered Baylor University on a debate scholarship. While at Baylor, she married fellow Wacoan David Richards and continued to hone her oratory skills. She and David graduated in 1954.
Moving to Austin expanded the young couple’s involvement in politics. While her husband studied law, Richards earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas and worked as a social studies teacher at Fulmore Junior High School. In the mid-1950s, they also canvased for progressive candidates like Ralph Yarborough and honed ideas amongst the Young Democrats. After her husband took a job practicing labor law in Dallas in 1957, Richards kept house, raised their four children, and maintained her involvement in politics. During the 1970s, now back in Austin, the Richards’ home served as a hub for progressive Texas politics and the place where Ann organized political campaigns for female candidates like Sarah Weddington. Still, she never intended to run for office herself.
However, after David declined running for Travis County Commissioner, their friends urged Ann to consider. Relying on the networks and skills she spent years cultivating, she routed the longtime incumbent and took office in 1976. She served another term as a county commissioner before her 1980 election as Texas State Treasurer. During her two terms at that post, Richards streamlined Texas’ financial system. Her political acumen, oratory skill, and straightforwardness garnered the notice of the Democratic National Committee who invited her to give the keynote speech at the 1988 convention. Richards appeared on the rise.
But her political ascendency obscured a rapidly disintegrating personal life. For decades, alcohol lubricated the social and political circles in which Richards ran. Her heavy drinking turned her caustic wit mean and, while appearing to make her the life of the party, also endangered herself and others. In 1980, family and friends staged an intervention. Within the day she traveled to an out-of-state rehab facility. While improving many aspects of her life, Richards’ newfound sobriety could not repair the longstanding fissures within her marriage. She and David separated by the end of the year, divorcing in 1984. Whether astute recognition or self-fulfilling prophecy, Richards’ initial fears about the negative affect of her political career on her marriage came to pass. She spoke with candor about both experiences for the remainder of her political life.
With her rousing performance on the Atlanta dais in 1988, Richards opened a new avenue for herself. The political capital she garnered enabled her to mount a successful campaign for governor of Texas. While in office, Richards diversified holders of government appointments so they more accurately reflected the state’s demographics. Controversially, she banned the concealed carrying of handguns and limited access to assault weapons. Fiscal, education, and prison reform constituted significant portions of her agenda. Though popular, Richards lost in her 1994 reelection bid to George W. Bush.
After she left office, Richards worked as a political consultant, continuing to campaign for liberal causes and candidates. She also served as visiting professor at UT–Austin and Brandeis University. Richards died on September 13, 2006, after a brief battle with esophageal cancer. The spirited debater from Waco made her mark on Texas politics. Her election as state treasurer in 1980 marked the first time in half a century that a woman held a state-level position. To date, she remains the last Democratic governor of Texas and the first duly elected woman to hold the office.
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]]>What began as a small collection of native animals in the 1950s grew into the Cameron Park Zoo Wacoans know today. Cameron Park Zoo rests on fifty-two acres of land near the Brazos River, and is a popular stop for local families, school groups, and travelers making their way to Austin or Dallas on Interstate 35.
Originally organized by local wildlife enthusiasts, the collection of animals came together for the purpose of education and with the goal to showcase real, live animals to the public of Central Texas. In 1955, wildlife volunteers displayed mammals and reptiles at the Heart O’ Texas Fair. The small exhibit attracted donations from the visitors who supported the formation of a zoo. After the fair, the animals moved to a pet shop display in Waco on Twenty-Fifth Street. In 1956, the animals moved again to a fire station, and then in 1960 the animals moved to a permanent ten-acre site by Lake Waco and the Madison Cooper Municipal Airport known as the Central Texas Zoological Park.
During its early years, the park was a large collection of animals held in various enclosures with a food preparation area made of rock walls and a dirt floor. At its location by Lake Waco, staff members of the Central Texas Zoological Park worked hard to make the zoo operate professionally. Civic groups of volunteers raised money to build a nursery clinic for the animals and a kitchen to prepare food. Throughout the 1970s, zoo docents organized educational programs for McLennan County residents and the zoo built an entryway facility with a gift shop and ticket office. With all these moves forward, however, the zoo’s infrastructure and income could not support the dream of a sophisticated and scientific organization or the growth and nutrition of the animals. The zoo needed to move and rebuild. In order to make the dream a reality, community members interested in wildlife conservation joined the board of directors and pushed towards legitimacy and a more sophisticated institution.
In the late 1970s, the zoo became an entity of the city of Waco, and the discussion of moving locations began. Leaders of the zoo recognized Cameron Park as the perfect location because of the abundance of flora and fauna, ponds, and other natural elements that many city zoos have to build. Interest in the project gained momentum throughout Waco, and members of local civic organizations became heavily involved with raising money to move the zoo. After voters defeated a referendum to move the Central Texas Zoo from Airport Park to Cameron Park 1983, a county bond election was held and a vote passed in support of the zoo’s move to Cameron Park for 9.6 million dollars. The new zoo, known as Cameron Park Zoo, opened its doors on July 18, 1993, on fifty-two acres of lush land with over forty animals in natural habitats.
Since its opening in 1993, Cameron Park Zoo built new attractions such as a reptile house, Lemur Island, an African lion exhibit, and more. In 2005, the Brazos River Country exhibit opened to showcase indigenous plants and animals found on the banks of the Brazos River. In 2009, the Asian Forest exhibit opened with orangutans, Sumatran tigers, and Komodo dragons. Cameron Park Zoo is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and the staff provide care, training, and nutrition to animals. The Cameron Park Zoo not only is a recreational place to see animals, but is an educational resource for students from early childhood to graduate school education. The zoo holds seminars for international research and plays a large part in wildlife conservation by caring for endangered species and returning animals to the wild.
Today, Cameron Park Zoo is home to over 1,700 animals that are given care from the staff and veterinarians. The zoo continues to host opportunities to learn about the wildlife in the forms of school field trips, educational events, and fundraising events, and it is one of the top sites to visit in Waco.
]]>With the possible entrance into World War II on the horizon, McLennan County officials and local city leaders lobbied the federal government to build a military installation in the Waco area. By August 14, 1941, officials learned about the construction of a military base seven miles north of Waco. From the 1940s onward, James Connally Air Force Base was used for multiple purposes and underwent several name changes. Throughout its use, thousands of airmen learned basic training and pilot skills there. Today, the former James Connally Air Force Base is the location of Texas State Technical College.
After receiving news of the commission of a military base, the county acquired 1,162 acres for the construction of Waco Army Air Field. The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 sped up the construction of the base, and Waco Army Air Field welcomed its first basic training pilots in the spring of 1942. Citizens of Waco accepted the establishment of the base with high hopes for the future and welcomed the soldiers to the community. During World War II the air base trained 236 soldiers in basic military skills and tactical flying. After the conclusion of conflict, the facility remained inactive for three years.
After the establishment of the United States Air Force in 1947, the military base reopened as Waco Air Force Base in 1948. Waco Air Force Base acquired a new training mission in response to the international tensions building during the Cold War. A year later, the base changed its name once more to Connally Air Force Base, and then was finalized as the James Connally Air Force Base in 1950 in memory of James T. Connally. Connally was a Waco native killed during a bomb raid in World War II over Japan when his aircraft was hit by artillery and exploded.
Throughout the 1950s, the focus of training taught at James Connally Air Force Base changed frequently. The facility trained soldiers in helicopter and liaison piloting that was soon replaced with navigation, radar observation, and bombardier training. Later, training of single-engine pilots began. In 1958, the United States Air Force Instrument Pilot Instructor School moved to James Connally for three years with a mission to train air force students from many different countries. During this time, James Connally took pride in its active force of Mitchel B-25s that helped to train radar intercept officers.
Along with long hours of training, soldiers called Connally home. Men and women from every state as well as around the world lived, socialized, and carried out their daily routine on the base. Equipped with classrooms for high school and college education courses, residents could fulfill their academic needs. Men and their families lived in housing on or off the base, used on-base facilities such as the cafeteria and dining halls, commissary, laundromat, barbershops and salon, and more. Residents received news through a weekly published newspaper, and had access to clinics and hospitals for any health-related needs. For leisure, residents enjoyed locations such as the library, snack bar, malt bar, and theater, as well as recreational activities that included baseball, bowling, swimming, and more. Children of soldiers attended Teen Town, a Saturday night chaperoned event, and wives of soldiers formed the Air Force Wives Club to get acquainted with one another and the community.
In 1965, to meet the state of Texas’ workforce needs, the James Connally Technical Institute was founded on the base through Texas A&M University. Soon after the establishment of the technical institute, students of navigation training moved to Sacramento, California, and the state purchased the base for $5.2 million and the technical institute thrived. In 1969, the school separated from Texas A&M University and changed its name to Texas State Technical Institute, and finally named Texas State Technical College in 1991.
Through its years of operation, the James Connally Air Force Base served as a setting for the training of thousands of soldiers, as well as a place where citizens worked and families mingled. The base made a great impact on the training of military soldiers and the Central Texas economy, and classes are continued today under the operation of Texas State Technical College.
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]]>In 1852, John Robinson arrived in Central Texas, from Demopolis, Alabama, with his family and six slaves, founding what would soon become known as Robinsonville. Two years later, his brother Levi joined him, bringing his own family and an additional four slaves. Among Levi’s slaves was a man named (Jim) Orand Bonner. According to family lore, Levi sent Orand and several other men to a Mill in Jefferson County to pick up lumber. While at the Mill, Orand met a slave woman named Millie Stewart. The two married and Millie became the nanny for the Robinson family. Millie had three children from a previous marriage, and would have several more children with Orand. In 1860, the Robinsons hired a tutor for their children. Since Millie was their nanny, her children were allowed to learn some limited lessons from the tutor as well.
After emancipation, the black community in Robinsonville grew quickly. Millie remained close with the Robinson family and with the children whom she had nursed and helped raise. In 1881, John Robinson’s son, Edward L. Robinson, gave just under 5 acres of land to Millie, with the stipulation that the land be used for educational purposes. Millie’s husband and two other men signed for the property. The community decided not only to build a school, but also a church on the plot of land. In 1882 members of the community completed St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and the Post Oak Academy. In April of that year St. Paul held its first services under the leadership of E. H. Harris, the first pastor of the church, and an original trustee of the school.
The school and the church were closely connected. Most of the families of the area attended the church and sent their children to the school. C.H. Dorsey was one of the early headmasters of the Post Oak Academy. Dorsey also organized the church choir and served as a Church Trustee and Sunday School Superintendent. Children could stay after school on Friday afternoons for choir practice in order to perform on Sunday mornings. The school had two rooms, two teachers, and taught up to a seventh grade level. Some children continued their education at A.J. Moore High School in Waco.
A block over from the church, a cemetery provided a final resting place for the community. People buried there include men and women born in slavery, as well as veterans of World War I and II and several other wars. There is a mix of beautifully crafted headstones, hand carved memorials, and various other markers. Today, descendants of the black community continue to bury loved ones in this local cemetery.
Over time, the demographic of the area changed, as many Americans gradually moved out of the area. The school was destroyed by fire in the 1920s when it was struck by lightning, and was never rebuilt. Even the town itself changed, from Robinsonville to Robinson in 1955. However, St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church is still in existence today and descendants of Millie Bonner and other original families continue to attend. The congregation gathers each Sunday to worship and serve the community, just as the church was commissioned to do over 130 years ago.
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]]>The Grand Lodge of Texas on Columbus Avenue has long served as the center of operations for masonry in Texas and is one of the largest freemason lodges in the world.
The Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons is the oldest continuously operating organization in Texas, established through the Grand Lodge of Louisiana in 1835 and becoming its own entity in 1837, with Sam Houston presiding over the organizational meeting. It developed into the fifth-largest masonic lodge in the world as well as the headquarters for Texas freemasons. On December 6, 1904, it moved from Houston to Waco. Twentieth-century modernization and rapid economic expansion made Waco’s central location in the state the perfect location for the masons, establishing prime conditions for the growth of the Grand Lodge.
The fraternal organization initially shared a building with the National Guard in Waco but needed more space as the lodge continued to grow. The masons formed a committee, purchased land, and crafted a building design. On December 23, 1947, the Masons held a groundbreaking ceremony. The two million dollar project was completed in 1949, and the One Hundred and Fourteenth Annual Communication was the first event held in the new lodge.
The building, located on Columbus Avenue between Sixth Street and Seventh Street, is grandiose. The Grand Lodge’s granite white stone finish and design are inspired by the description given in the Bible of King Solomon’s Temple—a massive, elegant structure constructed to hold the Ark of the Covenant. The impressive structure attracts many viewers and draws interest to downtown Waco.
At first glance, eyes are drawn to the two large pillars in front of the building with globes situated on top. One globe is terrestrial while the other globe is celestial. Contemplating these two bodies is meant to inspire the studies of geometry, astronomy, geography, and navigation through which more extensive knowledge of the mysteries of nature and laws which govern the universe may be obtained. The other noticeable feature on the outside of Grand Lodge is a stone bas-relief illustrating people quarrying, transporting, and setting stones for the construction of King Solomon’s Temple. Raoul Josset, a French-born American sculptor whose work can be seen throughout Texas, received a commission in 1948 to incorporate the sculpture onto the side of the building. This architectural feature separated the building from any other in Waco or Texas.
Internally, the lodge contains facilities such as offices, meeting halls, a library, and a museum. Additionally, items such as Sam Houston’s gavel, the Masonic constitution, petitions, books, speeches, communication notes, and portraits are on display within. This impressive building, which combines both a visual experience and a practical space, accomplishes more than just sharing the knowledge of the history, of the Texas Masonic Order. The Grand Lodge preserves information on Waco and Texas history making it an important part in understanding the surrounding region.
In addition to meeting the needs of Texas freemasons, the Grand Lodge of Texas has served as a center for the fraternal organization’s charitable operations as well. The Masons largely centered their efforts upon the provision of education for children, establishing both Masonic-sponsored and public schools throughout Texas. Some other charities of the Texas freemasons include the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children and the Shriners Burns Institute in Galveston.
Today the Grand Lodge of Texas remains the center of freemasonry in Texas, in addition to standing as one of the hallmark architectural pieces of the city.
]]>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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]]>On May 31, 1851, four charter members established the First Baptist Church of Waco. These members reached out to prominent missionary and Texan Rev. Noah T. Byers, offering him a salary of seventy-five dollars per year to pastor the church. The church initially was composed of only fifteen members and met in the meeting place of the First Methodist Church until obtaining a brick building of their own at Fourth Street and Mary Avenue in 1857. The construction of this first building was a community effort. Church member B. D. Arnold provided the brick from his own brick-laying company, and committees within the congregation ensured that the church’s basic needs such as lamps and pews were fulfilled. When completed, the church was one of the most impressive structures in Waco at that time.
A fire demolished the brick structure in 1877, and construction on a new church began almost immediately. Though the building efforts were not completed until 1883, the base floor was finished by 1880 and in use by the congregation for worship. At this time the church entered a period of innovative change under the leadership of B. H. Carroll. For the first time, women were allowed to serve as deacons in the church and worshippers implemented the use of musical instruments in their services. Carroll was known throughout the Baptist community for his profound theological knowledge and fierce leadership style. In 1870, the congregation appointed him pastor after he gained recognition in the local community for a revival hosted at New Hope Baptist Church earlier that year. He regarded his position as pastor as a commitment to be deeply honored and missed only one Sunday service throughout his time as pastor at First Baptist Church. In 1883, the First Baptist Church of Waco was invited to attend the Southern Baptist Convention in Richmond, Virginia, for the first time. Carroll served as pastor at First Baptist until 1899, when he was called to serve as a secretary for the Texas Baptist Education Commission.
In 1915, First Baptist Church’s longest-serving pastor, Dr. Joseph Martin Dawson, began his tenure. Dawson primarily focused upon social issues, as well as the church’s budget. During construction of the new church in the late nineteenth century, the church had incurred a significant amount of debt. Dawson worked to eradicate this, focusing on the budget even during the Depression, sacrificing his own salary in order to save the church money. During the Southern Baptist Convention’s 75 Million Dollar Campaign from 1914 to 1924, the First Baptist Church was assigned to raise $200,000, the largest portion given to any church. Dawson often preached about social justice issues such as racial and gender prejudice, as well as about the separation of church and state. In addition to his position as pastor of First Baptist, Dawson held many other leadership positions in the Baptist community. For instance, he served as the president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1922, the chairman of the Southern Baptist Committee on World Peace in 1945, and the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1945 to 1946.
First Baptist Church of Waco was highly involved with the establishment of quality education in Waco. It has been credited with the establishment of the Waco Classical School, which later became Waco University. This school was the first coeducational university in the South, and the second in the United States after a department for girls was added in 1866. In 1886, Waco University merged with Baylor University. First Baptist Church also aided in the creation of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and the George W. Truett Seminary located at Baylor University. The church also contributed to the founding of the Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in 1919.
Today, First Baptist Church continues to serve the Waco community through its dedication to worship, social justice, and commitment to higher education. Baylor University and First Baptist Church have retained a strong relationship since 1886 through Baylor’s many students, administration, and staff who worship at the church. The church continues its legacy of supporting the Waco community through ministries which aid groups such as Waco’s schoolchildren, disabled, and low-income families.
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