By Terri Jo Ryan
First United Methodist Church marks its founding year as 1850, when the Rev. Joseph Perkins Sneed, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, preached to the inhabitants of Waco Village at the foot of…

By Terri Jo Ryan
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company began its corporate existence in the days following the Civil War and was intended to funnel business from Kansas City and points north and east to a new…

By Terri Jo Ryan
A notorious crime over fifty years ago in Texas changed the way Americans view courtroom drama—not just as fictional entertainment but as reality programming. In December of 1955, the murder trial of…

By Terri Jo Ryan
Roy Brown Bertrand Sr. was known as the "Waffle Wizard" and as a statesman among restaurateurs for his long career in the food trade in Waco. Born on ranchland near Eddy in 1909 to Alabama-native Emma…

By Terri Jo Ryan
Waco’s law enforcement has seen many a hoodlum since the days of the town’s founding in 1849. One of the most notorious was Clyde Barrow—half of the infamous gun-slinging duo Bonnie and Clyde. On…

By Terri Jo Ryan
Waco Female College served as an influential institution of higher learning for women in the nineteenth century. The consolidation of two other female educational institutions, Waco Female Seminary…

By Terri Jo Ryan
The first African American mayor of a major city in Texas, Oscar DuCongé rose to local prominence through his civil service and selfless dedication to improving life for all Wacoans. Born in Pass…

By Terri Jo Ryan
Waco was a city on the move at the turn of the twentieth century, and its run into modernity was aided by the advent of the interurban electric railway. Although Waco had other forms of mass transit…

By Terri Jo Ryan
A proudly old-fashioned medicine in retro packaging that features a turn-of-the-twentieth-century tot is not only a vestige of Waco’s drug store past—it is a part of its present as well. The…

By Terri Jo Ryan
One of the “go-to” guys for erecting temples to prosperity in Waco during the ragtime era (1900-18), was Roy Ellsworth Lane, who helped establish some of the earliest architectural professional…

By Terri Jo Ryan
One of the most infamous publicity stunts of all time, "The Crash at Crush," took place about 3 miles south of West, Texas, featuring two locomotives of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad…

By Terri Jo Ryan
For more than 40 years, the seeds planted in Washington, D.C., by McLennan County native Bob Poage reaped rewards in Central Texas. As U.S. representative from Texas' 11th Congressional District — a…

By Terri Jo Ryan
Decades before American Idol made stars out of wannabes, Waco had its own hit-maker, Mary Holliday.Holliday (1901-1969), believed to be the first female radio announcer in Texas, broadcast a…

By Sylvia Hernandez
On the corner of South Eleventh Street and Cleveland Ave, Cruz’s Drive Inn stood as a cornerstone to the community for over 50 years. Four generations of the Cruz family served both the neighborhood…

By Stephanie Endicott
Jeffie Obrea Allen Conner was born in 1895 on her family’s farm in Harrison Switch, Texas. She was the oldest of three children born to Meddie Lilian and Jeff D. Allen. Harrison Switch, later known as…

By Stephanie Endicott
After Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II, production increased dramatically at home to aid the war effort overseas. In short order, munitions factories popped up…

By Stephanie Endicott
The Watson Feed Store is an inseparable part of downtown Mart. Built over 100 years ago, it still stands proudly at its place along Texas Avenue. In 1903, Ruff Watson moved to Mart and purchased…

By Stephanie Endicott
Crawford, Texas, is home to the beautiful Tonkawa Falls, drawing visitors and locals alike for recreational activities and fun each year. The falls are named after the Tonkawa Indians who inhabited…

By Stephanie Endicott
Dan “Uncle Dan” McLennan was born in 1849 as a slave to Neil McLennan in what would a year later become known as McLennan County, named for his master. Uncle Dan became a beloved member of not only…

By Skylar Ray
While chiropractic therapy might now seem like a widely accepted treatment for physical ailments, the practice was hotly contested from the time of its emergence in 1895 until the middle of the…

By Skylar Ray
In the 1960s and 1970s, the taste of pizza and the sound of Dixieland jazz went hand in hand for Wacoans who frequented Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. Shakey’s, the nation’s first franchise pizza chain, would…

By Skylar Ray
During the 1950s and 1960s, Rev. Marvin C. Griffin strove to bring the Christian gospel to bear upon the civil rights struggle in Waco. As minister of New Hope Baptist Church from 1951 to 1969,…