On the east bank of the Brazos River stands East Terrace House, a residence with a past that is as remarkable as its Italianate style of architecture. Future industrialist John Wesley Mann moved to…

McCulloch House is a historic house museum owned by Historic Waco Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to maintain and preserve the history of Waco. This organization owns three historic…

The story of Reed’s Flowers is as much about its founder, Albert Harry Reed, as it is about the shop. Reed emigrated from London, England, in 1908 at the behest of his brother, Tom Reed. The two Reed…

In 1930, Harry Burmeister opened Harry B’s at 1925 Speight Avenue. Burmeister, a former Baylor student and founding member of the Noze Brothers society, developed the small restaurant, soon making it…

In 1948, brothers-in-law Jack Schaevitz and Lou Stein opened a small mobile food cart at James Connally Air Force Base. The two became so successful selling burgers and frozen custard to military men…

In the early 1950s, McLennan County voters approved a $1.2 million bond towards the construction of a new agricultural and entertainment venue. Contractors Farnsworth and Chambers of Houston, Texas,…

Faced with decreased business and enormous renovation costs, the brothers decided to sell the restaurant in 1986. David Tinsley, a well-known Texan restaurateur, purchased the Elite Café for…

For over a century, the Hippodrome Theatre has stood as a downtown home for ever-changing forms of entertainment. The venue emerged in the early twentieth century through advocates for a downtown…

This important archaeological find containing the remains of twenty-five Columbian mammoths lies just on the outskirts of the city of Waco. Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin discovered the site in 1978…

Lake Waco is a reservoir and artificial lake which serves a variety of functions for the city of Waco. The dam was built in 1929 in order to control flooding of the Bosque River and to provide the…

A picturesque limestone bluff situated high above the Bosque River, Lovers’ Leap is as dangerous as it is beautiful. On June 28, 1917, the Cameron family purchased a tract of sixty acres featuring the…

Few major products are as closely identified with the people and environment where they began as Dr Pepper in Waco. Developing from a soft drink invented at a local drugstore to one of the largest and…

In the years leading up to 1870, the Brazos River proved to be both a blessing and a curse to the city of Waco. During that time, no bridges spanned the eight hundred miles of river flowing through…

After the Amicable Life Insurance Company opened for business on April 2, 1910, the owners began searching for a location to house their new business. The owners of First National Bank, located at…

Fort Fisher is an excellent example of how a historical site can be reimagined to fit contemporary needs. Comprised of a few shanties in the mid nineteenth century, more than 130 years later the Waco…

One of the largest municipal parks in Texas, Cameron Park has provided Wacoans with ready access to natural beauty and recreational activities for over one hundred years. Though it is hard to imagine…

When Stephen F. Austin led the first Anglo-American settlers into Texas including areas along the Brazos River, they brought with them their strong agricultural tradition based on cotton-growing. From…

Built in 1901, the McLennan County Courthouse holds pride of place within Waco as not only a functioning center of justice but also the city’s most impressive civic building. Designed by James Riley…