This post is part of a series that highlights Independence, Texas, the home of Baylor University from 1845 to 1886.
One of the many historic preservation groups that has assisted with preserving history in and around Independence through the years was the Baylor Historical Society. Formed to “stimulate interest in the history of Baylor University,” the society was founded in February 1941. Membership was open to anyone interested, and it cost only $1 to join the society. Members attended regular meetings on the Baylor campus, and usually heard a historical paper presentation at each meeting. Featured speakers included such state luminaries as Price Daniel (governor of Texas 1956-1962) and Pat Neff (governor of Texas 1921-1925, president of Baylor University 1932-1947). Longtime Baylor staff and faculty members P.D. Browne, Robert L. Reid, and Lily Russell served as society officers, and many descendants of early Baylor-associated families were members of the organization.
Celebrating the first restoration of the iconic columns at Independence. Pictured are (left to right): Dr. Gordon Singleton, President of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Judge Royston Crane, son of former Baylor president William Carey Crane,, Dr. W. R. White, President of Baylor University, Judge E. E. Townes, Vice President of the Baylor Board of Trustees (Board of Regents).
The society was very interested in preserving Texas, Baylor, and community history at Independence. Members raised money to stabilize the iconic Baylor columns, discussed a plan to reconstruct a dorm and operate it as an inn, and lobbied the Texas Legislature to turn part of Independence into a state park. Members also helped the Texas State Garden Club landscape around Independence.
It is not known exactly when the society disbanded. By 1964, the society only had 21 members at their annual meeting, and many of the people who had taken the lead in forming and running the organization had passed away. Longtime member P.D. Browne donated the society’s records to the Texas Collection in 1975.
Works Cited: BU Records: Baylor Historical Society, Accession #BU/28, The Texas Collection, Baylor University, and BU Records: Historical Research Office, Accession #BU/103, The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
Each month, we post an update to notify our readers about the latest archival collections to be processed and some highlights of our print material acquisitions. These resources are primed for research and are just a sampling of the many resources to be found at The Texas Collection!
June’s finding aids By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
Leon Jaworski papers, 1905-1983, undated (#2442): Includes materials that describe the professional and personal life of Leon Jaworski from 1905 to 1983. Jaworski is most widely regarded for his roles in Watergate, the war crime trials in Germany, and as Special Assistant Attorney General in USA v. Ross Barnett. These papers also reflect his legal and civic service, as well as his involvement with the Warren Commission and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Personal materials, speeches and addresses, and Jaworski’s literary productions are also found in these papers.
Tommy West papers, 1975-1998 (#3569): This collection contains some of the literary works of journalist Tommy West, as well as a few personal remarks describing West by journalist Ray Bell.
Manual belonging to Leon Jaworski, who was the first American to try war crimes in Europe under the Geneva Convention. Jaworski wrote annotations and notes, and taped changes to the book on the actual pages. Leon Jaworski papers, Accession #21442, Box 257, Folder 4, The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
June’s print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
The Dallas Automobile Country Club: with its Lands, Buildings, Tennis Court, Bowling Alleys, Shooting Trap: Billiard, Lounging and Dining Rooms, and Modern Equipment. [Dallas?]: [publisher not identified], [between 1910 and 1940?]. Print.
This beautiful pamphlet states, “The Dallas Automobile Country Club is an association of gentlemen who own automobiles who desire a clean, high-class rendezvous where they may bring their families…”. Dining, dancing, bowling, and billiards are just some of the activities offered to club members. Click here to view in BearCat.
Pecos Land and Cattle Company. Charter and By-Laws of the Pecos Land and Cattle Company of Texas. Exeter, N.H.: printed by William B. Morrill, 1886. Print.
The Pecos Land and Cattle Company, organized in 1884, was made up of investors primarily from Massachusetts. This volume contains Articles of Incorporation and Code of By-Laws. Also included are the names and duties of the Board of Directors. Click here to view in BearCat.
1921 Lamar Fair and Exposition: Paris, Texas, Oct. 10-11-12-13-14-15. [Paris, TX?]: [publisher not identified], [1921]. Print.
Published in 1921 as Lamar County was celebrating the centennial of its settlement, this expansive volume highlights the many events that make up the fair and exposition, including horse racing, swine show, merchant exposition, agriculture and horticultural product exhibits, entertainment, and centennial pageants. Click here to view in BearCat.
by Allie McCormack, Rare Books Catalog Librarian for Baylor Libraries
For this installment of Cataloger’s Corner, I’d like to share with you one of the oldest books held at The Texas Collection: a 1562 printing of Ptolemy’s Geographia. Not only is the book itself quite old, but it was acquired very early in the history of The Texas Collection through a unique program called the McGregor Plan for the Encouragement of Book Collecting by American College Libraries that operated during the 1930s.
The Geographia, sometimes called the Cosmographia, is special for many reasons. A revision of a now-lost atlas by Marinus of Tyre, it was compiled around 150 CE by Claudius Ptolemy using new principles and additional Roman and Persian sources. It was translated into Arabic in the 9th century and Latin in 1406, going through many editions in each language.
A large portion of Ptolemy’s work was dedicated to cartographic principles. Specifically, he improved the treatment of map projections—the system that lets cartographers map a round object like the globe onto a flat plane like a map—and gave readers instructions on how to recreate his maps. He also provided latitude and longitude coordinates for all the places and geographical features in the book.
Of course, the ancient Romans were only aware of about a quarter of the globe; Ptolemy’s European maps didn’t include Scandinavia, for example, let alone North or South America. Later editions added additional maps to represent new knowledge. During the Age of Exploration, when Europeans launched extensive overseas exploration parties, new editions included as many as 64 regional maps. Old maps also had to be altered to reflect these discoveries.
What I want to focus on here is one of the more curious geographical features mapped in the Geographia: the island of Taprobana. Don’t worry if that name doesn’t sound familiar: this place was known to the Greeks before the time of Alexander the Great, but modern scholars have no idea to what land it corresponds. On the map above, based on Ptolemy’s original world map, it is situated south of India and might represent Sri Lanka. However, on the map to the left, which is based on geographical knowledge of the 1560s, Sri Lanka is clearly marked with a Z (Zeelan, a strange Latinization of the Portuguese Ceilão, from whence the English term Ceylon). Instead, the position of Taprobana might correlate with the island of Sumatra.
But wait! A map of the area between the Adaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand has Sumatra marked as Camatra. Below it is the island of Java (marked Iava, as Latin orthography often did not include the letter J). If Taprobana isn’t Sri Lanka or Sumatra, what is it?
Some scholars think Taprobana is a phantom island, a geographical feature that shows up on maps for many years until subsequent explorations of the area fail to find the land mass. Others think the ancient Greeks and Romans simply miscalculated the location of Sri Lanka on their maps. They use linguistic evidence to bolster their argument: according to the Mahavamsa, a 5th century CE document written in the Pali language that chronicles the history of the kings of Sri Lanka, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni (“copper-red hands” or “copper-red earth”) because his followers’ hands were reddened by the soil on the island.
Perhaps later cartographers kept both Sri Lanka and Taprobana on their maps because they respected Ptolemy’s authority. Indeed, until the scientific revolution, previous scholarship was so revered that new discoveries which repudiated established fact were viewed with suspicion, or shoehorned into existing systems of thought even when there were obvious contradictions. Or, maybe the cartographers simply couldn’t rule out the existence of Taprobana and included it in their maps in case it was one day discovered. It remains a mystery.
Baylor University holds other works by Ptolemy, which you can see here. If you’re interested in other early geographical works, click here. If you’d specifically like to see early atlases, follow this link.
You think this summer is a hot one? It probably won’t surprise you that Waco, Texas, has hot summers (and arguably falls and winters and springs). What might surprise you is that a Central Texas teen tracked temperatures for decades. However, that’s exactly what Hallie Earle did.
Born in McLennan County in 1880, Earle was the only woman in the class of 1907 at Baylor University Medical School in Dallas and later became Waco’s first female physician. She kept local weather diaries from about age fifteen until the year before she died in 1963. The Texas Collection is fortunate to have these diaries as part of the Graves-Earle family papers.
Almost every day, Hallie would open her journal entry by commenting on the weather. Sometimes she was as straight forward as simply writing down the temperature, and other days she’d only offer an adjective like “cloudy” before outlining her schedule or detailing what happened to her that day.
She was most likely inspired by her father, Major Isham Harrison Earle, the first registered weather reporter in Central Texas, who kept weather records long before Hallie’s birth.
Curious about tomorrow’s (June 17th) weather in years past? Luckily, because of Hallie Earle’s diaries, we know.
1917: “cl & cold” (whether “cl” means cloudy or clear is unknown)
1918: “clear”
1919: “Sunshine – glad to see it… a very heavy dew”
1921: “Raining”
1924: “Up at 6.40 – few clouds”
1926: “cool and… very badly want rain”
1931: “83”
1934: “82”
1935: “up at 7.10 – cloudy”
1938: “76… up at 6 – clear”
1939: “Rain”
1950: “92°”
1953: “92°”
1956: “92°”
1957: “80°”
1960: “rainy – some light rain”
1962: “90° at 4 P.M.”
So what will tomorrow hold? Probably more of the same, but that doesn’t mean the information is trivial. If this collection has taught me anything it’s that you never know when you might want to look back, even on the seemingly mundane details of life.
If you want learn more about the Earle family and their weather tracking, you can find more in the Graves-Earle family papers. The collection contains Hallie’s dairies, her father’s weather documentation, and more!
References:
Graves-Earle Family Papers, Accession #47, The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
This is the first in a number of upcoming posts about the town of Independence, where Baylor University’s original campus was, and the connections between Independence and Baylor people and events.
Independence has always been connected with the history of the Republic of Texas. From the renaming of Coles Settlement to Independence, to Sam Houston living in Independence, there is no shortage of connections to historic early Texas people and events. One of these special events celebrated each year is San Jacinto Day.
This holiday, commemorating Sam Houston’s victory at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21 against Santa Anna’s government, was a major holiday at Baylor at Independence. Multiple historical accounts preserved at The Texas Collection at Baylor University in Waco mention the annual festivities of San Jacinto Day at Independence.
Drawing of the Baylor University Male Campus (Windmill Hill) at Independence. Note the buggies moving fast down the road.
One letter, written by Florence L. Davis Bledsoe, vividly describes an event that took place at Baylor University in Independence on San Jacinto Day in 1859:
One of the jubilees here is on the 21st of April, in commemoration of the battle of San Jacinto. We had “big doings” here on the 21st. General Houston was here and spoke to us. I like very much to hear him speak. He said there were but two things he now aspired to, one was to be an overseer of the roads, to see that they were in good order for he knew the ladies did not love to travel over rough roads. The other was to be Squire and see that the young ladies did not marry worthless vagabond fellows and that the young gentlemen did not marry slovenly careless girls.
Margaret Hall Hicks, also a Baylor student at Independence in the mid-1800s, describes the holiday in her unpublished book “Memories of Ancestors.”
An annual picnic on San Jacinto Day was a social event anticipated and prepared for months before the time. Each girl had made a date weeks before with some boy, generally her sweetheart, for the whole day together. If the boy was financially able, he hired a horse and buggy to take his lady love, and these were the envy of the other girls, who had to join in with others in hiring a hack or wagon and go in crowds.
Things have changed since the days students used buggys for transportation, but the excitement and fun of holidays and events on campus lives on in such events as Dia del Oso and Homecoming.
Works Cited: Keeth, Kent. “Looking Back at Baylor: a Collection of Historical Vignettes.” Waco: Baylor University, 1985; BU records: Baylor at Independence, Accession #BU/220, The Texas Collection, Baylor University; and Hicks-Hall-Harman family papers, Accession #1726, The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
Each month, we post an update to notify our readers about the latest archival collections to be processed and some highlights of our print material acquisitions. These resources are primed for research and are just a sampling of the many resources to be found at The Texas Collection!
May’s finding aids By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
Waco, Belton, and Georgetown Railroad records, 1909-1910, undated (#1577): Contains correspondence, financial notes, clippings, and the articles of incorporation about the planning and construction of the railroad in 1909-1910. Ultimately, however, the venture failed and the railroad was not completed.
Annie Jenkins Sallee and her husband Dr. William Sallee were missionaries to the interior of China in the early 1900s. This photograph shows the Sallees as guests at an ordination service in Kaifeng, the capital city of the Henan province. You’ll find these items in the Annie Jenkins Sallee papers, 1897-1967, undated (#715), box 1, folder 13, at The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
Annie Jenkins Sallee papers, 1897-1967, undated (#715): Includes manuscripts, photographs, newspaper clippings, diaries, and letters to and from Annie Jenkins Sallee and William Eugene Sallee, Baptist missionaries to China in the early 1900s through the beginning of World War II.
Texas Colony Association collection, circa 1870’s (#3295): Contains a broadside entitled “Texas Colony Association, Rapid Development of a Glorious Country.” It was produced in the mid-1870’s in an attempt to entice Americans to move to Texas, particularly the Kaufman County area east of Dallas
May’s print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
Thomas, Henry J., Mrs. The Prairie Rifles, or, The Captives of New Mexico: a Romance of the Southwest. New York: Beadle and Adams, [1868]. Print.
This dime novel, one of nearly 400 in The Texas Collection, contains the fictional tale of two women who are captured by Comanche Indians. Click here to view in BearCat.
Catalogue of the West Texas Military Academy: a Church School for Boys. San Antonio, TX: The Academy, 1904-. Print.
This catalog was produced just eleven years after the 1893 founding of the West Texas Military Academy in San Antonio. Two-thirds of the volume explains rules and regulations, administrative information, and academic standards. The remainder is devoted to athletics. Click here to view in BearCat.
Some of the Things 1909 Farmers Buy. Volume 1. Texas. New York: Crowell Publishing Company, 1909. Print.
Published as a special issue of the national publication Farm and Fireside, this volume highlights a group of Grayson County, Texas farmers randomly selected from the publication’s subscription list. Included in the volume are photographs of homes and descriptions of farms. Click here to view in BearCat.
by Allie McCormack, Rare Books Catalog Librarian for Baylor Libraries
Welcome back to Cataloger’s Corner! In my second article for this series, I’d like to tell you about an amazing book The Texas Collection purchased last year: the first Italian edition of Francisco López de Gómara’s account of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, La Historia Generale delle Indie Occidentali, from 1556.
Gómara became the private chaplain of famed conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1540. This relationship gave him easy access to other Spaniards who had traveled to Mexico with Cortés. In 1552, he compiled interviews with these explorers, as well as manuscript accounts written by missionaries and Caribbean governors, to form the book Primera y Segunda Parte de la Historia General de las Indias. The work was extremely popular and had at least 50 editions in Spanish, Italian, French, and English through 1600.
However, Gómara’s contemporaries strongly criticized the book. Prominent writers like Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who had been a soldier under Cortés, thought Gómara focused too much on his former boss without giving due credit to others involved in the campaign, and Friar Bartolomé de las Casas thought he glossed over the atrocities Cortés committed against indigenous peoples in the Americas. Even the Spanish Crown found fault with the book, perhaps for its criticism directed against Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, and Philip II officially banned its publication in Spain in a 1553 decree. However, copies in Spanish continued to be printed in Antwerp and Rome throughout the 16th century. The publication ban was formally ended in 1757.
The Texas Collection’s copy of the Historia is no longer in its original binding, but the pages are remarkably clean with only a hint of water damage. At some point, a former owner or bookseller put a strip of paper just above the publication statement on the title page. My guess is that a fancy filigree or other kind of illustration was cut out of the book, and someone filled in the hole to minimize further ripping or stress to the page.
The text is set in italic type, a cursive font based on 15th and 16th-century calligraphy. Today we only use italics to emphasize part of a text, but it used to be used throughout books.
This image showcases the lovely initials used at the beginning of most chapters. Each letters has an architectural background, some of which are identifiable buildings while others are more generic.
If you look in the bottom right corner of the page, you will see evidence that a bookworm has been in this book. Yes, bookworms are real—but the term can refer to any insect that bores through books. Cloth bindings can attract moths, while certain varieties of beetles will attack leather or wooden bindings. Tiny wingless bugs of the order Psocoptera feed mainly on mold and other organic material found on the pages of books. These insects are more likely to be a danger to books that are housed in damp, humid spaces, which is why the special collections librarians at Baylor are so strict about climate control in the libraries.
One of the most important features of this book can be found on page 202: an early image of the bison. (According to research done by Gunter Sehmi, the earliest European illustration of a bison was found in the first edition of Gómara’s book.) Interestingly, it is the only illustration in the entire book and comes before the chapter “Delle vacche gobbe che ci sonno in Quivira,” or “On the humpback cows that are in Quivira.” The explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led an expedition north from Mexico to search for the mythical “Seven Cities of Gold;” when he failed to find them, he instead turned east to look for a wealthy civilization the Pueblo Indians called Quivira. However, when Coronado finally reached it, he was unable to find any gold. The exact location of this settlement is uncertain, but historians and archaeologists think it was likely in central Kansas.
If you’d like to read the original Spanish text of this book in a modern edition, you can find it in Moody Library at Baylor University. To find other early descriptions of the Americas held by The Texas Collection, follow this link.
iSehm, Gunter G. (1991). “The first European bison illustration and the first Central European exhibit of a living bison. With a table of the sixteenth century editions of Francisco López de Gómara.” Archives of Natural History 18 (3): 323-332.
Each month, we post an update to notify our readers about the latest archival collections to be processed and some highlights of our print material acquisitions. These resources are primed for research and are just a sampling of the many resources to be found at The Texas Collection!
February finding aids By Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
For over forty years, General Tire and Rubber Company ran a plant in Waco, Texas, that produced tires and other rubber products for the U.S. Army and domestic consumers. The old tire plant building was renovated in 2010 for use as a research facility. Currently, the building hosts scientists from Baylor University, Texas State Technical College, and various businesses. Rosemyrtle McLaughlin General Tire and Rubber Company photographic collection, 1957-1986, undated, Accession #3968, box 1, folder 5, at The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
McGregor Plan records, 1936-1942 (#171): Consists of materials documenting the Baylor University Texas Collection’s participation in the McGregor Plan. The McGregor Plan assisted smaller libraries who lacked resources and access to book dealers in purchasing rare Americana to add to their holdings.
BU records: Donald I. Moore, 1939-2003 (#BU/383): Correspondence from World War II, letters relating to Moore’s compositions and work as director of the Golden Wave Band at Baylor University, marching band diagrams, photographic materials, programs, and film of the band’s performances.
This undated photograph features Donald I. Moore, longtime director of Baylor University’s Golden Wave Band, directing band practice. BU records: Donald I. Moore, 1939-2003, Accession #BU/383, box 18, folder 12, at The Texas Collection, Baylor University.
February print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
Neal, Dorothy Jensen. The Cloud-Climbing Railroad: A Story of Timber, Trestles, and Trains. Alamogordo, NM: Alamogordo Print. Co., 1966. Print.
Dorothy Jensen Neal provides a close look at the construction history of the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway, which connects Alamogordo and Russia, New Mexico. Filled with photographs and maps, The Cloud-Climbing Railroad explores the challenges of building a railway that climbs nearly 5,000 feet in 32 miles. Click here to view in BearCat.
Lomax, John A. Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads. New York: The Macmillan Company [1945]. Print.
Noted folklorists and musicologists John A. Lomax and his son Alan compiled this expansive volume containing sheet music, lyrics, and annotations of cowboy and frontier songs. This volume is revised from the original 1910 edition, which can also be found in The Texas Collection. Click here to view in BearCat.
Corpus Christi: The Ideal Summer and Winter Resort of Texas. Corpus Christi, TX: Noakes Brothers, [1920]. Print.
Like similar promotional books printed in the early 20th century, this volume is filled with beautiful full-color images that highlight the many resources found in Corpus Christi, including the abundance of game, fish, and fruit. Click here to view in BearCat.
In late November 1941, the most respected authority on materials relating to Texas visited Baylor University’s Texas Collection as part of his duties as a member of the McGregor Fund Committee. Thomas W. Streeter applauded The Texas Collection’s holdings in a letter to Guy B. Harrison and generously donated several items from his personal collection to the library.
Thomas Streeter was a successful businessman from the Northeast who harbored an interest in the collecting of rare materials relating to American history. His business ventures took him to Texas, which he utilized as an opportunity to add maps, broadsides, and various other items to his collection. By the end of his life, Streeter had assembled the largest known private collection of Texana.
Streeter meticulously compiled and published his Bibliography of Texas 1795-1845 in three volumes between 1955 and 1960. The work contained more than 1,600 entries including maps, novels, and musical scores along with pamphlets and government documents. His bibliography is widely considered the foremost authority on early Texas imprints and The Texas Collection owns many of the items he included.
Five of these items came from Streeter personally in 1941 after his visit to The Texas Collection. He came to Waco as a representative of the McGregor Plan, a program Baylor University participated in throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. The program, founded by philanthropist and bibliophile Tracy W. McGregor, assisted libraries not located near major institutions to purchase rare books they would otherwise not be able to access. The school paid $500 each year and the McGregor Plan matched their funds and acted as the go-between for the schools and rare book dealers. Streeter served as a member of the committee which administrated the program after McGregor’s death in 1936.
A new map of Texas, with the contiguous American & Mexican states (1836)
The Texas Collection acquired significant rare Texas materials through the library’s participation in the McGregor Plan. After his visit, Streeter sent several items he felt would fill in the gaps he perceived in The Texas Collection’s holdings. He donated an 1836 map of Texas entitled “New Map of Texas with the Contiguous American and Mexican States.” The map, published by S. Mitchell, included boxes of text containing information on the general state of Texas, its land grants, and rivers.
Title page of Nuttall’s Journal of Travels… (1821)
Streeter also donated a pamphlet from the Secretary of the Treasury of the Republic of Texas to President Houston and a Mexican imprint detailing financial transactions after the war with Texas. Streeter included a pamphlet, “Lecture on the Subject of Re-annexing Texas to the United States,” delivered in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1845. This item gives a well-reasoned argument in favor of annexation from a northern perspective and is unique because most northerners opposed the annexation of Texas as a slave state into the Union. The Baylor Lariat identified the last item, Thomas Nuttall’s Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory, as the most valuable in the donation. Even though the work did not directly mention Texas, Streeter still felt it was worthwhile in its description of the territory now adjoining Texas.
Although Streeter did not publish his famed Bibliography of Texas for several more years, his visit to Waco and personal donation remain an important part of the story of The Texas Collection. The library continues to purchase Streeter items today and hopes to enlarge its holdings of these rare items in the years ahead.
Streeter, Thomas W. Bibliography of Texas 1795-1845. Portland, ME: Anthoensen Press, 1955. Reprinted, revised and enlarged by Archibald Hanna with a guide to the microfilm collection Texas as Province and Republic: 1795-1845. Woodbridge, CT: Research Publications, Inc., 1983.
Each month, we post an update to notify our readers about the latest archival collections to be processed and some highlights of our print material acquisitions. These resources are primed for research and are just a sampling of the many resources to be found at The Texas Collection!
October’s finding aids By Emily Carolin, Graduate Assistant, and Paul Fisher, Processing Archivist
This image shows baseball being played at what was then Baylor University’s main sports venue: Carroll Field. Image taken circa 1903, Waco Texas. Notice Carroll Science Building and Old Main in the background (Carol R. Bates photograph album, Accession #3980, The Texas Collection, Baylor University.).
Carol R. Bates photograph album, 1907-1910 (#3980): Provides a glimpse into student life at Baylor in the 1900s. Many of the University’s events such as “Ring Out,” graduation, and sports such as football and baseball are represented in this album.
W.R. “Skeet” Eason papers, 1928-1940 (#2983): The W.R. “Skeet” Eason papers give insight into the workings of an airport operator and pilot in the 1920s-1940s through logbooks and photographs. With his friend, Ed Ockander, Eason operated the East Waco Airport from 1929-1933, where they sold airplanes, taught flying, and barnstormed at various small towns in the 1920s and 1930s. This collection includes Eason’s logbooks from East Waco Airport and photographs.
Aaron Moses Goldstein papers, 1927-1936 (#1807): Aaron Moses Goldstein was well-known in the Waco area, as president of his father and uncle’s company, Goldstein-Migel Department Store, city commissioner, and president of the Waco Chamber of Commerce. His papers include correspondence to and from Goldstein and several prominent leaders in the Waco community.
John Oscar Birgen “Swede” Johnson papers, 1860s-1990s (#2284): The collection of John Oscar Birgen “Swede” Johnson contains articles, photographs, and other materials on the railroad industry in Texas from Johnson’s 41 years working in the Katy Railroad Shop.
John R. Rogers Architectural drawings (#3924): The John R. Roger Architectural drawings contain plans for many different kinds of buildings in Central Texas, designed by Waco firm Drennon Associates/The Rogers Company. The majority of the plans are for buildings in Central Texas, including Waco, Rosebud, Itasca, McGregor, Lorena, Belton, Salado, Temple, and more.
Champe Carter Eubank Photo Album, circa 1890s (#2790): Compiled over a series of trips to New England and includes images of Waco, Texas, as well as coastal scenes in New England. The album displays some early photographic practices such as cyanotypes, silver gelatin, collodion, and albumen prints.
Waco Regional Baptist Association records, 1897-2014 (#230): The Waco Regional Baptist Association records largely document the activities of the Waco Regional Baptist Association in Central Texas from the 1930s through the early 1980s. It is comprised of minutes, correspondence, periodicals, reports, budgets, ledgers, and photographs.
October’s print materials By Amie Oliver, Librarian and Curator of Print Materials
The Cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico: Photo-gravure. El Paso: W.G. Walz Co., 1894. Print.
With only two pages of text, the majority of this volume is a wonderful collection of nearly 40 images of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. From the Plaza of Ciudad Juarez to the views of Fort Bliss, this volume provides a great look at turn of century Texas and Mexico. Click here to view in BearCat!
This accordion-style booklet contains 24 images of the Texas coastal region, including photos from Bay City, Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, and more. The images range from residential, coastal, and agricultural points of interest. Click here to view in BearCat!
Austin, Stephen F. Notice. [San Felipe de Austin]: [G.B. Cotton], 1829. Print.
This rare broadside, one of only three copies of the original 25 printed known to exist, informs immigrants to Austin’s Colony about the information needed to be accepted. Requested information includes name and age of the head of household and dependents, occupation, and “recommendations, accrediting the Christianity, morality and steady habits of the applicant.” Click here to view in BearCat!
![Thomas, Henry J., Mrs. The Prairie Rifles, or, The Captives of New Mexico: a Romance of the Southwest. New York: Beadle and Adams, [1868]. Print.](https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4276/34869832812_281d3deb8e_o.jpg)
![Lomax, John A. Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads. New York: The Macmillan Company [1945]. Print.](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2888/33147019636_8d5da30b34_o.jpg)
![Corpus Christi: The Ideal Summer and Winter Resort of Texas. Corpus Christi, TX: Noakes Brothers, [1920]. Print.](https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/723/32343759014_8564ac81db_o.jpg)
![Jones, Tom. Miniatures: Gulf Coast, Southern Texas [Cincinnati]: [Tom Jones], 1907. Print.](https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5560/30533286501_ba282f227b_o.jpg)
![Austin, Stephen F. Notice. [San Felipe de Austin]: [G.B. Cotton], 1829. Print](https://c7.staticflickr.com/6/5603/30321499390_e0fa21dcfa_o.jpg)