The rapid rise of migrant labor in Texas in the 1940s brought large numbers of laborers to Waco. To accommodate this new situation, the city of Waco acquired funds to build the Waco Farm Labor Camp, a center where workers could stay and receive aid while following the crops. Although the camp was only in operation for about twenty years, it had a long-lasting impact on the Waco community.

The Bracero Program, a program through which American farmers in need of laborers could hire Mexican workers in need of a job, began in 1942 due to a decrease in available American farm labor caused by World War II. Although Texas was initially excluded from this program due to its history of discrimination against Mexican immigrants, the “Bracero Ban” was lifted in 1946, and Texas became one of the first stops workers would make as they followed work across the United States.

Waco quickly became a hub for migrant workers because of its cotton crops. As more and more workers came into Waco, the McLennan County Farm Bureau, the Texas Employment Commission, Texas Agri-Life Extension, and the Waco Chamber of Commerce came together to provide them with resources and a place to stay. The Chamber of Commerce began raising funds in 1946, and the new farm labor center was built by the next harvest season.

Initially, the camp consisted of a large Quonset hut on the corner of 3rd Street and Marlborough (now Bosque) Avenue. It accommodated about 100 workers, providing housing, showers, first aid supplies, and other support. However, due to its frequent use and the number of families that came into town every harvest, the facility was quickly expanded in 1947. Along with the services provided at the camp, volunteer organizations such as Church Women United in Waco worked to supply laborers with food, a nursery, a kindergarten, immunizations, and other services.

Aside from its primary function, the camp also became a home for other farm support services. It housed the McLennan County Farm Bureau’s income tax office and often hosted 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America) events and livestock shows. It also served as a meeting place, where local farmers could come to recruit laborers and workers could come when they needed a job.

The center was renovated and expanded in 1957. It grew to accommodate up to 400 workers in a season. It continued to be a hub for agricultural activity in Waco until the 1960s. In 1964, the government discontinued the Bracero Program, and Waco no longer needed a labor center. Its use slowly decreased, and the city finally demolished it and built a new health center in its place during Urban Renewal. The site of the labor camp is now home to the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District.

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At a fountain named La Pila, children frequently splashed and played while others took a drink or filled jars and buckets with water. La Pila, meaning “the basin,” was the centerpiece and social hub of the historic Calle Dos neighborhood from the 1920s to the 1960s. Fed by an artesian well close by, the fountain produced warm, drinkable water to a neighborhood in which few had access to running water in their homes.

The origin of La Pila is unknown, although Waco newspapers suggest that the city authorized the construction of an artesian well near the area in 1915, and it was reported in 1933 that a fountain in the area was fed by a nearby well with warm water. Children would play and bathe in its waters, and families would bring containers to fill from its four faucets, taking the water home to use for cooking, drinking, and cleaning. Often day laborers gathered at La Pila, waiting to be picked up for work. The fountain’s artesian waters even drew Waco residents who did not live in Calle Dos. Rudy Solano, who lived in Calle Dos as a child, recalled that “people would pull up in their fancy cars and load up their fancy glass containers.” While La Pila held a communal significance for the residents of Calle Dos, it served the broader Waco area as well. 

In 1950, the waters of La Pila dried up. Although its practical use had faded, it still served as a gathering place for the community until Urban Renewal destroyed both Calle Dos and La Pila in 1958. Urban Renewal was an effort to clear “slums” from the downtown area, and it happened in cities across the nation. Low-income neighborhoods and minority communities were those most impacted, displaced from homes and businesses. La Pila was buried, and its concrete edges were damaged even further with the later expansion of University Parks Drive. 

In 2016 Alice Rodriguez, founder of the Waco Hispanic Museum, and Louis Gayton-Garcia decided that unearthing La Pila would be an excellent way to commemorate an important aspect of Waco Hispanic heritage. Partnering with archaeologist Katherine Turner-Pearson, the work to excavate the historic fountain began the following year with a grant for the project from Baylor Philanthropy and Public Service. The money was quickly exhausted, and Turner-Pearson used donations from the community and an army of volunteers, including students from the nearby Indian Spring Middle School, to contribute to the project and to educate the community about the process of excavation. 

In 2020, Pearson-Turner and the Waco Hispanic Museum wanted to take the project in very different directions. The Waco Hispanic Museum had wanted to completely unearth La Pila and create a small park or monument out of it, perhaps with benches and art surrounding it. Pearson-Turner, however, believed it would be best to rebury La Pila because of the complications in getting volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She explained that it was a common archaeological practice to uncover an artifact enough to make a report about it and then backfill and rebury the item to protect it. With loss of funding and volunteers, the recommendation of the Texas Historical Commission to backfill, and the lack of a detailed plan with Waco ISD to turn the fountain into a monument on their property, La Pila became once again a buried memory. 

La Pila’s future is uncertain. It might be uncovered again and reconstructed, or it might remain as it is. Regardless of what happens, La Pila still stands in the memories of those who lived in Calle Dos as a symbol of their community, and the excavation project ensured that the legacy of La Pila was shared with a new generation of Wacoans. 

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Urban renewal programs swept across the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Funded by the federal government, cities throughout the country sought to improve local architecture and expand residential areas by purchasing and decimating pre-existing neighborhoods, a process often referred to as “slum clearance.” The City of Waco conducted the largest urban renewal program in the state of Texas. Intending to redesign and improve city infrastructure, local government officials formed the Waco Urban Renewal Agency. Launched in 1957, the first project was a partnership with Baylor University and focused on the renewal of land adjacent to the school’s campus. 

In the summer of 1958, Waco and Baylor declared the homes, businesses, churches, and other buildings near the Brazos River as “slums” in need of clearance. City planner E. H. Lovelace of Harland Bartholomew & Associates, an urban planning firm, affirmed Waco’s first project location as ideal for urban renewal. The city held a vote in June for the Baylor University Project, which received a resounding vote of approval—2,133 yeas to 293 nays. Notably, the City of Waco changed voting requirements on voting day, declaring only property owners as eligible voters. Seventy percent of residents in the area deemed a slum rented their homes.

After the election, Waco and Baylor planned to construct a park, residential housing, highways, and expand Baylor’s campus in the area. Most of the homes within the approved urban renewal area belonged to Black Wacoans. Residents appeared before the city council on October 13, 1958, to protest the confiscation of their homes. The expansion of Baylor University, which still refused Black students’ entry, remained central to their objections. Eighty property owners from the area signed a petition to maintain ownership of their homes.

Waco and Baylor ignored residential complaints and moved forward with urban renewal. In January 1959, they received federal approval of $67,474 for the 85-acre project. Once the Texas Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of federal aid for local urban renewal projects, Waco and Baylor established the official bounds of their first urban renewal project: the area confined by Fourth and First Streets and Jones and Leila Avenues. Waco’s urban renewal committee members—including real estate agent Hank L. Corwin, former mayor Truett Smith, Baylor Trustee Hilton E. Howell, and Baylor Executive Vice President Abner McCall—cheered federal and state approval, declaring the decision a victory for Waco and Baylor.

The city and university planned to remove 187 homes from the area, resulting in the relocation of 209 families and 50 individuals, the majority of whom were people of color. Residents and advocates for those within the bounds of Waco’s first urban renewal project gathered to protest once more on November 24, 1959.

Overflowing into the corridors, hundreds of urban renewal protestors blocked the entrance of city hall. Church members objected to the movement of their congregational spaces. Property owners resisted the seizure of their homes. Fred Finch, a prominent NAACP lawyer, objected to the area’s classification as a “slum” and noted that many residents would never be able to purchase another home. Resident after resident objected to their relocation. Waco Reverend J. L. Carter of 1621 South Third Street also rose to protest. If removed, he declared that he would not be able to buy another home or send his four daughters to college, especially since they could not attend segregated Baylor University. “In the event that this plan should pass and all the people are moved out, I believe you will cause a number of crimes,” Carter stated, “and I am a minister.”

Despite extraordinary opposition, Waco and Baylor began to relocate residents and knock down structures in January 1960. By 1963, the Waco Urban Renewal Agency had removed all residents from the Baylor University Project area and demolished all 272 structures within its bounds.

Waco and Baylor completed the Baylor University Project, or Baylor 1A, in July 1964, the first urban renewal project completed in the state of Texas, and soon completed another project, Riverside 1 Baylor. With federal funds, Waco purchased land from local residents, often at lower rates than market value, and sold the property to the private university. Baylor eventually bought 163 acres and constructed new classroom buildings, dormitories, and faculty housing. The university’s campus, which grew by fifty acres during this time, remains on urban renewal land today.

Several additional urban renewal projects ran in Waco throughout the mid- to late twentieth century. In 1960, they began the next initiative in Calle Dos near St. Francis Catholic Church and Sandtown. Over the next ten years, Waco purchased and renewed over 2,100 acres of land. By the late 1970s, Waco had completed ten urban renewal projects, more than any other city in Texas, permanently shifting the structure of the city and the residents within its bounds.

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Mission Waco has been a cornerstone of the Waco community for decades. Even before the official creation of Mission Waco, founders Jimmy and Janet Dorrell worked hard to make a difference in the impoverished neighborhood of North Waco.

After originally meeting while working at the Waco State Home when Janet was a Baylor student, the Dorrells found their way back to Waco in 1978. They purchased a large, dilapidated house in North Waco with the express purpose of living among those they planned to serve. They began slowly fixing up the home and getting to know those in the community. Beyond the weekly kid and teen clubs they set up, the couple also worked closely with the Campfire organization and Reconcilers Fellowship of Waco.

The Dorrells’ initial incursion into Waco outreach lasted only a year, as they moved to Houston in 1979 for a few years so Jimmy could study under a local pastor experimenting with the idea of cell churches, or smaller home churches, to help spread the gospel throughout large communities. From there they traveled with their firstborn around the world for three months on an exposure trip, learning about poverty and struggle around the world. Upon their return to the United States, as Janet was pregnant with the couple’s second child, they moved back into their home in North Waco with a deeper understanding of poverty and all the more eager to serve those around them. They continued their grassroots community outreach and urban missions for a little less than a decade.

It was not until 1991 that the Dorrells saw the need to form an official nonprofit to support and expand their neighborhood ministry, and they founded Cross Culture Experiences Inc (CCE). The initial intent of this organization was to get middle-class Americans out of their comfort zone and plugged into service and mission work. This goal birthed some of the Dorrells’ first national and international ventures, Poverty Simulation, and “exposure trips.” Poverty Simulation is designed to give people a taste of what it is like to be homeless. Participants sleep in the backyard of a Mission Waco building, find food around town with no money, and much more. The exposure trips were designed to give Americans a window into poverty beyond what they could see in their own towns, true third-world poverty. The Dorrells also continued their neighborhood ministry and Bible clubs while launching CCE. That same year, the Christian Missions Concerns (CMC) Foundation saw the good work the Dorrells were doing in Waco and beyond and decided to fund a new program under the Dorrells’ leadership, Mission Waco. The new program exploded and was quickly brought under the CCE umbrella with continued support by the CMC. Every year since then the Dorrells have launched new projects and learned how to meet the needs of the Waco community in diverse ways.

In the next couple years, Mission Waco made some big moves in the neighborhood. First, the Dorrells purchased an old carpet store next to their home and made it the home base for Poverty Simulation. But the most significant purchase came when they bought the entire shopping center on North Fifteenth Street and Colcord Avenue (on map below). The shopping center was notoriously seedy, housing four low-end bars and a pornographic theater, the Capri. Mission Waco completely renovated the center and began using it for job training, GED. classes, and more. The Dorrells also turned the Capri into a children’s theater and meeting place for the community. Named Jubilee Center, it runs programs like Urban Expression and Prelude Gloria, visual arts and classical music programs for kids. The center even houses a twenty-eight-foot rock climbing wall as well. The building next to the shopping center then became the Youth Center and is a hangout for high-risk and at-risk youth to play video games, pool, and foosball; lift weights; and even hop into the later-added recording studio and let their voice be heard. The initial renovations earned Mission Waco the 1994 “Audrey Nelson Community Development” award, one of five awarded each year nationally. In the coming decade the center would become home to the main offices of Mission Waco and the Mission Waco World Cup Café and Fair Trade Market, located at the intersection of Fifteenth Street and Colcord Avenue. The café and market not only support artisans around the world through fair trade and train locals in food service, they bring middle- and upper-class people into the area and spread awareness of poverty in Waco. By 2000 the Dorrells also founded the Waco Community Development Corporation to bring similar economic development to the area and help provide affordable housing like the Mission Waco-owned Ark Apartments.

The mid-nineties also saw the arrival of Church Under the Bridge and Friday Morning Breakfast. It all started as a Bible study with five homeless men, and Jimmy would also take these men to breakfast on Friday morning. The Bible study grew quickly, as those who were not comfortable within the walls of a church felt accepted in this group of peers. It eventually grew so large that Mission Waco named the gathering Church Under the Bridge, and it met every Sunday morning under the I-35 overpass. When the group grew too large for Jimmy to accommodate for breakfast, First Lutheran Church stepped in and started the official Friday Morning Breakfast gathering at their church, run by volunteers. Church Under the Bridge too became its own entity separate from Mission Waco and now boasts a congregation of three hundred people. This work with the homeless and impoverished shed light on the problems of drugs and alcohol addictions among the homeless population and led to the founding of Mission Waco’s Manna House, an alcohol and drug recovery home, and the Lighthouse, a transition home for those coming out of Manna House. Mission Waco would later found a homeless shelter of its own, My Brother’s Keeper, but not until a decade later in 2004.

Another monumental addition for Mission Waco came in 2005 with the opening of the Meyer Center for Urban Ministries. Mission Waco calls the Meyer Center its “one-stop-shop for the poor and marginalized.” Funded by the Paul and Jane Meyer Family Foundation, this center in downtown offers showers, laundry, clothing vouchers and shelter vouchers, along with a computer lab, job training, and job search aid. The clothing and shelter vouchers can be redeemed at My Brother’s Keeper and Mission Waco’s voucher center, where people can exchange vouchers for free clothes. Mission Waco also runs The Clothesline, selling donated clothes to support other Mission Waco ventures, and it shares a building with the voucher center. In 2011 the Meyer Center also added mental health and relapse prevention services with the help of the Baylor University psychology department. The Meyer Center would later open a chapel for weddings and events in 2013 to help pay for its other services.

In 2012, Mission Waco adopted the name Mission Waco Mission World to better reflect the organization’s work. On top of the many programs Mission Waco operates in the local community, it also still works with partners in Haiti, Mexico City, and India. Mission Waco also continues to take groups to these locations on exposure trips to serve the local populations.

A very important addition to Mission Waco’s ventures was the Jubilee Food Market in 2016. Operating within a known “food desert,” meaning no grocery store existed within walking distance of the neighborhood, Mission Waco wanted to provide low-income families with fresh and healthy foods. Produce is grown behind the store as part of the Urban R.E.A.P. program, allowing the store to sell fresh vegetables at a low price.

In 2018, Jimmy Dorrell passed the executive director position on to John Calaway, but Jimmy remains president. Mission Waco has undeniably changed the face of the city and helped thousands of its residents. Its facets and programs extend beyond those mentioned here, and it continues to provide every service possible to break the cycles of poverty and empower those in need.

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In the early part of the twentieth century, the area around Bridge Street on the west side of the Brazos River, known as the square, was home to various bars, restaurants, grocery stores, offices, insurance agencies, and other businesses that were African-American owned. The square boasted popular institutions like the Gem Theatre, Mecca Drug Store, and the Jockey Club Barber Shop, the first black-owned barbershop in the city. It originally opened in 1920 on the bottom floor of the Conner & Willis building at Second Street and Franklin Avenue and was named Jockey Club after a line of beauty and hair-care products that the wife of the building’s owner’s wife spotted in Chicago. The owner Woodrow “Buster” Anderson had his son take over the business while he served during World War II. In 1944, Anderson’s nephew Benny Frank Smith came to the business and remained the owner until his death in 2004. The Jockey Club closed its doors in 2011 when its last barber, Lloyd Dugas, retired.

The Jockey Club Barber Shop weathered the 1953 tornado that demolished much of Bridge Street and the square. But in 1970, the federal urban renewal program cleared the entire area of some two hundred buildings, sparing only Waco City Hall. The business was forced to relocate to Elm Street and received only $2,500 in compensation for the move. Regardless of location, the barbershop remained a neighborhood icon for many generations.

Long-serving barbers Jesse Mayes, Lloyd Dugas, and Cicero Martin grew extremely close and attracted a loyal clientele. The barbers encouraged customers to stick around and catch up on Dallas Cowboy trivia and discuss who was missing from church last week. The Jockey Club was a place where the currency was talk and people got good, solid haircuts—not hairstyles. In its history, the barbershop attracted a number of celebrities including the famous baseball star Jackie Robinson. It was also a favorite of Baylor athletes like Walter Abercrombie and Michael Johnson. Many generations have remained loyal to the Jockey Club, even driving in from out of town to get a haircut after moving away from Waco. The barbershop remained an active part of the neighborhood, supporting local charities and caring about the community. It cultivated an irreplaceable and timeless environment through conversation, laughter, and haircuts and it represents a legacy of hard, honest work supported by loyal customers. The barbershop provided meaningful and memorable community for Waco citizens for countless years.

The Jockey Club’s service to the Waco community for over a century lives on today. Former owner Frank Smith’s widow, Iva, reopened the Jockey Club in February of 2016 much to the excitement of the neighborhood. The original barber chairs are still intact and have been reupholstered in dashing red and blue. The same seating remains along the wall coupled with the familiar Big Red vending machine. Tributes to the rich history of the shop are displayed all along the walls for customers to view. This Waco icon was designated a City of Waco Historic Landmark in 2023, and it continues to serve its community on Elm Avenue, preserving its legacy for future generations of customers.

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The area which once comprised Edgefield Neighborhood has undergone significant changes over the last century. Located on the south side of the city, it encompassed the area between what is today Waco Creek to the north, Brazos River to the east, La Salle Avenue to the south, and Third Street to the west. The land originally was comprised of cotton fields, and its first prominent building was the Miller Cotton Mill, constructed in 1919. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cotton dominated Waco’s economy and Edgefield drew in workers from surrounding farms to the mill.

This influx of people to Edgefield developed the area into a full-fledged neighborhood. What had once been large expanses of fields was divided up in the 1910s and 1920s into individual parcels of land, large enough that many residents kept cows and chickens and cultivated their own gardens. The area also attracted more mills and factories—among them twine mills, a handle factory, and a pickle factory. These establishments owned properties in what was known as “mill block,” a four- to five-block stretch of First Street adjacent to the cotton mill, which employers rented out to their workers. Because they were company owned, these houses tended to be better equipped than others in Edgefield.

Edgefield was a low-income, working-class neighborhood. Most residents lived in inexpensive wooden shotgun houses, many of which were built with lumber from the deconstruction of Camp MacArthur. Residents often built these structures themselves, leaving many of them structurally unsound. Residents typically rented rather than owned the land which their homes sat upon, and in order to pay the rent, both parents and children usually held jobs. When finances were particularly tight, multiple families lived together to make ends meet.

Despite financial challenges, Edgefield residents formed a tight-knit community. A strong religious undercurrent served as one of Edgefield’s most binding elements. The area was home to a variety of denominations, from Baptist to Episcopal to Pentecostal. These churches ran outreach ministries to serve and strengthen the community. In 1890, First Baptist Church of Waco began mission efforts in the Edgefield area to serve the mill block community living and working there. This community organized under their own identity as Edgefield Baptist Church in 1917. In addition to Christian families, Jewish families also resided in Edgefield, although the area did not have a synagogue. Because of the residents’ strong religious ties, many saw Edgefield as a safe and pleasant neighborhood. As Woodrow Calvin Carlile put it, “the community was not only safe, but everybody seemed to expect a high standard of morality even if sometimes they didn’t reach it.”

The midcentury brought sweeping changes to Waco and Edgefield. The declining cotton industry led to the closure of the Miller Cotton Mill in the 1950s, and the structurally unsound residences in Edgefield had reached a point of major dilapidation. Sadly, the downturn in the Edgefield area was not an anomaly. The 1953 tornado and white flight had left most of the older areas of the city in disrepair.

Baylor University, which bordered Edgefield as well as other declining neighborhoods, was pushing to expand and the City of Waco found a solution to both issues in a series of urban renewal projects. Between 1958 and 1978, the City of Waco completed a series of nine urban renewal projects aimed at revitalizing these areas. The last of these was the Edgefield project, with approximately $2.2 million going toward rehabilitating twenty-four residences and the razing of just over 197 acres of land, which were then purchased by Baylor University. The university has since developed the area to include buildings such as its riverside sports complex and the Baylor Science Building.

Urban renewal is undoubtedly the most controversial piece of Edgefield’s history. Intended to improve Waco’s aesthetic appeal, living conditions, and economy, the program displaced hundreds of poor families and broke up tight-knit communities. While some argued that the Edgefield project succeeded in improving conditions, others were quick to point out that Baylor University served as the primary beneficiary of the program rather than the general public.

Today, the part of the old Edgefield neighborhood that was not sold to the university is the site of new housing and apartment complexes that cater to university faculty and students. The old cotton mill building—which later became L. L. Sams and Sons and has now been converted into high-end loft apartments—stands as a physical reminder of what used to be Edgefield Neighborhood. 

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Calle Dos emerged in the early twentieth century as a haven for Mexican immigrants fleeing border violence and rapidly developed into a center of culture and community for Waco’s Hispanic population.

Prior to the establishment of Calle Dos, Mexican immigrants settled on the banks of the Brazos River in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in an area called Little Mexico, or Mexican Sandtown. The dawn of the Great War and arrival of a military base in Waco in 1917 led to the city shutting down the Reservation, a legal red-light district situated upon the banks of the Brazos River to the west of Sandtown. As prostitutes and madams left the city, houses sat vacant.

Around the same time as the closure of the Reservation, Mexican American laborers and immigrants fleeing violence at the border caused by the Mexican Revolution arrived in Waco. Although some Wacoans turned up their noses at the idea of moving into a formerly disreputable area, many immigrants saw the affordable houses as an opportunity to begin a new life.

Never an officially designated neighborhood, the boundaries of Calle Dos were often disputed. Some claimed the area simply to be an extension of Sandtown, while others claimed it as its own entity bounded by Fourth Street, Washington Avenue, modern-day Waco Drive, and the Brazos River. In either case, it is clear that the community along the Brazos grew to be a tight-knit center of Hispanic culture.

Many Calle Dos residents opened up businesses along Second Street, transforming the once avoided area into a busy thoroughfare. Various organizations established in the area to serve the immigrant community also contributed to the neighborhood’s sense of identity. A Baptist mission formed on Second Street in the late 1800s, which became the Mexican Baptist Mission in 1907. The Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana de Jornaleros formed in 1924 in order to assist Mexicans with their rights, jobs, funerals, and other needs, occupying the Baptist mission’s original building on Second Street. That same year, Franciscans arrived in Waco and established a Catholic church which soon became a center of community for Waco’s Hispanic population.

Former residents recall the poor but tight-knit neighborhood fondly. Most houses lacked indoor plumbing, and residents often tacked cardboard to windows and walls to keep the cold out during the winter. Yet many most vividly remember the vibrant community life centered in festivals and dances put on by area churches and fraternal organizations. Neighbors gathered at La Pila, a spring-fed fountain just off the banks of the river, and children often played and bathed in its waters. Hispanic community members who resided in other areas of Waco, such as on cotton farms in areas surrounding the city, also claimed ties to the area due to the wealth of cultural opportunities which Calle Dos provided Mexican Americans.

The beginning of Waco’s urban renewal program in 1958, established to alleviate inner-city blight, led to the demise of the culturally rich neighborhood. Local leaders declared portions of the city blighted and, after compensating owners, claimed the properties and demolished any structures not meeting the program’s requirements. The project cleared areas along the Brazos River from modern-day La Salle Avenue to several blocks past Waco Drive. The homes of Calle Dos were demolished and La Pila stopped up and buried, forcing residents to disperse to other areas throughout the city and state.

Today, only a few remnants of the former neighborhood stand, including a grove of ancient live oak trees, St. Francis on the Brazos Catholic Church, and the partially buried remains of La Pila. Recent efforts to excavate La Pila and establish a historical marker for the fountain which once centered an entire community reveal the importance of the former neighborhood. For half a century, Calle Dos provided cultural identity and community for Waco’s Mexican American population and the efforts of community leaders today ensure that this legacy will not be forgotten. 

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In the mid-twentieth century, Waco underwent major changes through the federally funded Urban Renewal Agency of Waco. Areas impacted included numerous city blocks between LaSalle Avenue and Waco Drive. The project greatly affected the city’s people, businesses, schools, and buildings, including Waco’s most prominent landmark, the ALICO building.

Between 1964 and 1966, the ALICO (American Life Insurance Company) building received major updates. The largest and most significant addition to the structure was the ALICO Inn and its convention facilities. The 22-story ALICO building, originally known as the Amicable building, was completed in 1911, and designed by architects Roy E. Lane and Sanguinet & Staats. It stood as the tallest office building in the southwestern United States at its completion. Once located in the central business district, it served as a vital part of the city’s economy. In order to remain that way, it needed to keep pace with the rapidly changing business climate of Waco in the 1950s and ’60s.

With the closing of the Roosevelt Hotel and its conversion into a retirement facility, more downtown hotels were needed, and the Waco Chamber of Commerce was receptive to ideas such as the creation of the ALICO Center. The city wanted to attract conventions and shoppers to the downtown area. Twenty-nine-year-old architect and owner of Down-Tel Corporation, Jay Frank Powell, initiated the center’s proposal. According to an article in the September 20, 1964, Waco Tribune-Herald, the Waco Chamber, when presented with the ALICO Center plan: “pounced on Powell like a piece of beef dangled before a starving lion.”

When completed in 1966, the ALICO Center Inn contained 115 rooms for overnight guests and a second-floor meeting room that sat 250 in a banquet or 1,000 to 1,200 people auditorium-style. It was described as a “downtown motor hotel with convention facilities, a motor bank, and a five-story parking garage.” The ALICO Center was designed to match its changing surroundings, including part of Austin Avenue’s closure to make it into a pedestrian mall, another part of the Waco Urban Renewal Agency’s planning.

At the 1964 ALICO Center groundbreaking ceremony, the president of Amicable Life Insurance Company, Franklin Smith, stated, “It will be not only a step toward completion of ALICO Center, but mark the beginning of a new atmosphere and a new enthusiasm in downtown Waco.” Additionally, Waco’s mayor Roger Conger compared the event to “the historic groundbreaking for the Amicable building more than fifty years ago.”

The end result, completed in 1966, changed the design of the original 1911 ALICO building, with the new hotel, convention center, parking garage, and motor bank joined directly to it. As a result, the ALICO Center’s additions took up nearly the entire 400 block of Austin Avenue—stretching much of the complex back to Washington Avenue. The entire redesign of the 1966 ALICO Center seemed well balanced in appearance—and represented the mid-century modern architectural style frequently seen during the period.

However, the ALICO Center as it appeared in 1966 is no longer. Like many other downtown businesses, the center struggled as many retailers moved out to the suburbs. The hotel and convention center were demolished in the late nineties, and the space is now used as a parking lot. The main vintage 1911 building and parking garage complex remain and retain most of the later modifications, including much of the 1966 addition’s façade at street level, wrapping around Austin Avenue, the parking garage along Fifth Street, and back to the Washington Avenue side of the complex.

The ALICO building has stood for over a century, remaining a successful combination of old and “new.” Most importantly, it continues to serve as Waco’s most prominent downtown landmark.

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Meticulous and exacting, prolific Waco architect Milton W. Scott crafted a legacy throughout the city that has withstood the test of time. Today, his historic buildings stand as hallmark pieces of Waco’s rich history.

Born in New Orleans on August 23, 1872, Milton William Wallace Scott came from a long line of Scottish engineers, inventors, and builders. When his family moved to Waco following his father’s death in 1883, Scott found work as an apprentice carpenter at the age of eleven in order to support his widowed mother and three sisters. Although he never received a formal college education, Scott loved to read and study, and after his mother remarried, he began to work as a draftsman for his stepfather John P. Powers.

Scott left his stepfather’s business in 1906 when he began to collaborate with Glenn Allen on the design of First Baptist Church of Waco. At that same time, the pair also began to draw up plans for the construction of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Plant (now, the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute). In 1907, he began working with noted Waco architect Roy E. Lane to design various private homes as well as the Rotan Grocery Company and the Brazos Investment Company.

As his reputation throughout the city grew, Scott received additional jobs which would cement his reputation as a Waco icon. In 1910, he partnered with T. Brooks Pearson on the design of Waco High, an elaborate three-storied project costing $140,000 (over $3 million in 2015) at its completion in 1913. During that extensive project, Scott met and married Ivy Eugenia Thompson Haythornwhite. The couple later had two children. By 1916, the couple purchased a family home at 617 North Fourth Street (as indicated on the Waco History map), and Scott designed and built a cluster of cottages and apartments around the home to rent out. Following 1913, Scott left his partners and branched out into his own work, though he sometimes employed associates and draftsmen to help with the workload.

Scott’s meticulous nature produced impressive architectural structures, but also frustrated many contractors. After his death, his son noted that Scott thought it was as his duty, as the on-site representative of the building’s owners, to oversee each detail of the construction process. Although his exacting demands may have produced some irritation, the results were unquestionable, as evidenced by the durability and strength of his designs. For instance, Scott designed many of the surviving multistory buildings of the 1953 tornado which devastated much of downtown Waco.

Scott’s work consumed his life. He took only two vacations during the last fifteen years before his death and worked tirelessly to ensure the quality and craftsmanship of his buildings. He designed buildings for various groups throughout the city, including eighteen public school buildings, portions of the Waco Methodist Home, Temple Rodef Shalom, and various buildings on the campuses of Baylor University and Texas A&M.

Though he had become well known throughout Waco and Central Texas, Scott scrambled for jobs after the Depression hit. He had been working to design an apartment complex as a personal project, but he lost most of his savings in the economic downturn. He struggled to find architecture commissions, and financial hardships compounded upon pre-existing health problems. He passed away in 1933.

Though some of Scott’s iconic work was torn down or destroyed during urban renewal in the 1960s, many of the buildings he designed still stand today. Structures such as Waco High and the Roosevelt Hotel convey this city’s great history while serving as reminders of Scott’s incredible work and lasting legacy.

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Sandtown was a vibrant and predominately Mexican American neighborhood that was active from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1960s. It encompassed the area of downtown Waco between Third Street and the Brazos River, and the seven blocks between Mary Street and present-day Baylor Law School. There were multiple interpretations on the actual boundaries of Sandtown as no official borders were ever established by the city of Waco.

At its peak during the 1950s, approximately fifty working-class families, such as the Fuentes, the Martinezes, and the Vasquezes, resided in Sandtown. For many of the community’s families, the neighborhood was the first place they called home within the United States after emigrating from Mexico. Former resident Jesse Serrano, recalling his experience of growing up in Sandtown, remarked, “I wish that we were still at our neighborhood here and that I could return to live here because it was an enjoyable place and we did keep it clean in spite of everything – the storms, the sandstorms, for what reason Sandtown was named.” Indeed, the neighborhood's sandy surroundings were a result of its proximity to the Brazos River. One resident later recalled watching his neighbors cast a line out their bedroom window to fish.

There were a few businesses located within Sandtown, from grocery stores and auto garages to barbershops and beer joints. Memorable establishments include Sunbright Waste Paper Company, Ruben Bravo’s Produce Company, and Rubles’ Grocery Store. Some of the schools in the neighborhood included South Third Street Elementary and A. J. Moore High School. Religious and social gathering sites such as an Assembly of God sanctuary and "The Blue Moon" nightspot also dotted the Sandtown landscape.

In 1958, the city of Waco voted to participate in the federal urban renewal program. As only property owners could vote, Sandtown residents, who were tenants primarily, had almost no chance of defeating the proposition. Only a small portion of the neighborhood’s residents were able to participate. One of the purposes of urban renewal was to eliminate slums in the downtown area, and the program directors quickly set their sights on Sandtown. As a result, the residents of the neighborhood soon found themselves scattered across the city, county, and beyond. “I’ve been quoted more than once as calling it ‘urban removal’ because it uprooted the Hispanic family in the worst way,” maintained former resident Robert Gamboa.

The people of Sandtown added greatly to Waco’s rich diversity and its working class residents contributed to the economic growth of the city. Though small in size and for many years lacking formal recognition, there is no dispute over Sandtown’s significance amongst its former residents. For these individuals, Sandtown was the place they grew up in, suffered hardships, and created countless wonderful memories. As Jesse Serrano affirmed, “Sandtown did exist, Sandtown is still here, and it will always be here in our hearts.”

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In 1886, Wacoans Isaac A. Goldstein and Louey Migel formed the Goldstein-Migel Company in order to try their hand at retail. The partners opened their first store on the ground floor of a building in the 700 block of Austin Avenue with only two clerks in their employ. After just one year of business, Goldstein and Migel possessed sufficient means to annex the adjacent building, thereby doubling their store’s capacity.

The store moved to the corner of Sixth Street and Austin Avenue in the 1890s. The new two-story, double-front brick building allowed Goldstein and Migel to expand the store’s inventory to meet the demands of a rapidly growing customer base. However, on August 18, 1891, tragedy struck when a fire destroyed the entire building. The company lost $80,000 in property damages.

Following the fire, the store was rebuilt and then renovated and expanded several times in the following years. In order to remain competitive with their local rivals, Goldstein-Migel became one of the first dry goods stores in Waco to make use of electric fans, elevators, air conditioning, and public restrooms. The department store even featured a soda fountain and a small restaurant for a time. Goldstein-Migel touted itself in advertisements as “Waco’s greatest department store.” While this claim was certainly embellished for promotional purposes, shoppers could find a variety of quality goods within its walls. The store carried a diverse assortment of clothing, furniture, jewelry, housewares, and other dry goods, spread out in lavishly decorated departments. 

During the second half of the twentieth century, Goldstein-Migel faced the challenges of suburbanization and economic downturn. In a bid to cater to a customer base that was increasingly relocating to the suburbs by the early 1960s, Goldstein-Migel opened a second location at the Lake Air Mall. Not to be forgotten, the original Goldstein-Migel location became one of the centerpieces of the Austin Avenue Pedestrian Mall, an urban renewal project sponsored by the City of Waco in 1970. Urban planners hoped that by closing the street to traffic and beautifying the space, residents would see the downtown as a viable shopping destination once again. Unfortunately, the mall failed to attract the long-term loyalty of customers, and the venture was abandoned in 1984. The demise of the pedestrian mall led to the demolition of Goldstein-Migel’s downtown location and the transfer of all operations to the suburban department store. Yet not even the suburbs could save Goldstein-Migel when difficult economic times led to the closure of the Lake Air Mall, forcing the department store to cease operations for good.

In spite of a competitive retail industry and the fickle economy, Goldstein-Migel proved its success through over a century of faithful service to Wacoans.

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Bridge Street holds an important legacy of connecting North, South, and East Waco, and serving as a center of community for the city’s many ethnic groups. Known as Main Street during Waco’s early days, this historic street earned its new name after the construction of the Waco Suspension Bridge around 1870. Over time, many of the wooden buildings lining Bridge Street became so dilapidated that the street earned the nickname Rat Row. A fire devastated the street in 1871, and businesses rebuilt using stone, thereby improving the image and stability of Bridge Street.

The majority of the African American community worked in businesses on Bridge Street during the nineteenth century. After the close of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, African Americans hired themselves out in Waco in positions according to the skills and experience they possessed. Most worked as laborers and servants, though many worked in positions such as farmers, schoolteachers, and carpenters.

Near the turn of the century, Bridge Street emerged as the center of the minority-owned business community and became a communal gathering point. According to the Waco city directory, African American-owned barbershops emerged on Bridge Street as early as 1877, and several Chinese laundries and a Hispanic grocery store opened in 1892. Over the next decade, the number of minority-owned businesses increased rapidly.

On the weekends, Bridge Street filled with families and citizens from all over Waco. Restaurants, taverns, hotels, and theaters offered entertainment and enjoyment, while doctors, dentists, grocers, tailors, and other business owners met the community’s other needs. Bridge Street also served as the center for several African American newspapers for Waco, including the Waco Messenger.