Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph and postcard collections. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.
Images from Waco–Streets–Franklin Avenue photo file
At 412 Franklin Ave, early millionaire J.T. Davis ran his oil and cattle empire, Rabajo Oil Co., from 1906 until the 1920s when he died.
From 1907 to 1927, the Waco Installment Co. sold secondhand items, which provided access to appliances and furniture for middle class families at an affordable price.
The longest lasting business on Franklin was the Nate Chodorow dry goods store (316 Franklin), from 1926 to 1970.
The Tom Padgitt Company (5th and Franklin) was one of the most successful saddle manufacturers of its day.
Sources from Franklin Avenue vertical file, The Texas Collection, Baylor University
Cruz, Jonathan. Four-Hundred (Odd) Franklin Avenue: Its People, Past and Places. Rep. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Dec. 10, 1997.
Roberts, Aileen. The Puzzle Pieces of Waco. Rep. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Dec. 10, 1997.
See all of the images in our Flickr set. GIF and factoids prepared by Haley Rodriguez, archives student assistant.
Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph and postcard collections. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.
We’ve got something a little different for you this month. These images were shot in Texas, but feature promotional movie displays that were probably seen across the country. Our images are from the Waco Hippodrome Theatre in the 1920s-1930s. Check out some of the elaborate productions enticing visitors to these early films.
The Hippodrome, first operated and constructed by Earl Henry Husley, began as a road show house known as “Hulsey’s Hipp” and offered major vaudeville attractions and movies. Construction for the theater house began in 1913 and opened on February 7, 1914.
For a whole ten cents, or a quarter for box seats, the opening night featured a live seal act, a five-piece orchestra, and a magic act.
An affiliate of Paramount, the Hippodrome served as a silent movie theater until a fire started in the projection and destroyed the front of the building in 1928. The renovations resulted in the Spanish Colonial Revival style that still remains today.
Under new management, its name was changed to Waco Theater and attracted many celebrities to Waco, including Elvis Presley (as a moviegoer) and John Wayne. More than 10,000 people gathered to see Wayne’s promotion.
The Junior League of Waco and the Cooper Foundation helped revitalize the theater (which had suffered from competition from suburban theaters) in 1987. The Waco Performing Arts Company operated it till 2010.
After much change throughout its lifetime, the Hippodrome reopened in 2014 and now offers first-release films as well as live theater, concerts, and other entertainment (and dining).
Sources
George, Mary Helen. “1910-1919 Skyscrapers & Beyond.” Waco Heritage & History 28 (Summer 1999): 45. N.p., n.d. Web. Print.
See all of the images in our Flickr set. GIFs and factoids prepared by Haley Rodriguez, archives student assistant, and Amanda Norman, university archivist.
Each month, we post a processing update to notify our readers about the latest collections that have finding aids online and are primed for research. Here are April’s finding aids:
Duer-Harn family papers. 1832-1928, undated (#26): Diaries, letters, legal and financial papers from the Republic of Texas and American Civil War. Notable documents include several diaries from the 1830s and 1840s written by German immigrant Johann Christian Friedrich Duer.
Gertrude Wallace Davis papers, 1896-1959 (#2166): Includes correspondence, notebooks, newspaper clippings, and other materials about the life of Gertrude Wallace Davis. Several items are from the Catholic-affiliated Academy of the Sacred Heart, in Waco, Texas, where Davis attended school.
German-language diary of Johann Christian Friedrich Duer, 1832
Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph and postcard collections. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.
Local businessman, philanthropist, and Baylor alum Isaac A. Goldstein helped persuade Andrew Carnegie to contribute $30,000 in grants to construct Waco’s Carnegie library. It opened November 28, 1904 and was located at 12th and Austin.
The total cost of the building was $44,688, and the library opened with 3,279 volumes. The first book to be checked out was Emma by Jane Austen.
Working alongside Willie Durham House, the first female head of schools in Waco, Goldstein knew the library would be of great service to the city and extolled the Carnegie Library as a “classical temple” where men and women could be brought “closer together for the highest and best purposes of pure and enlightened citizenship.”
The library outgrew the space by the early 1940s and moved to the Cameron House. The library continued to grow, the Cameron House’s structure began to fail, and the Eighteenth Street and Austin Avenue location of today’s Central library branch opened in the early 1960s.
Sources
Darden, Bob. An Austin Avenue Legacy: 100 Years with the Waco-McLennan County Library. Waco, TX: Waco-McLennan County Library Margin of Excellence Trust Fund, 1997. Print.
Sawyer, Amanda. “Waco Public Library,” Waco History, accessed February 13, 2015, http://wacohistory.org/items/show/29.
See all of these images on Flickr. GIF and factoids by Haley Rodriguez, student archives assistant.
This image shows the Huaco Club clubhouse a few years after its 1912 construction, as the shrubbery and landscaping look to have flourished. The water tank can be seen in the back right of the photo. Photo was taken not long before the entire facility was destroyed by fire in January 1917. Roy Ellsworth Lane collection, box 2, folder 1.
Built in 1912, the Huaco Club was one of the places to be for Wacoans of the 1910s. From golf and tennis to social events, wealthier Wacoans enjoyed spending time at the country club, located near Sanger Avenue and 29th Street.
However, the club didn’t last long. On January 4, 1917, the Huaco Club lost its clubhouse and surrounding structures to a devastating fire. A three-story building designed by architect Roy Lane, the clubhouse included two dining rooms, a parlor, offices, living rooms, reading room, and ballroom. The club also featured a nine-hole golf course, bowling alley, and tennis courts, on 50 acres. The next morning’s Waco Morning News reported: “Not a stick of the building or its contents was saved.”
This image shows what remained of the Huaco Club the day after the fire. The fire’s intensity is evident–members survey melted steel lockers with hopes of retrieving any spared belongings. The frames of the lockers and the limestone mantel were among the only remaining structures. Photograph by E.C. Blomeyer, President of the Texas Telephone Company, and member of the Huaco Club. E.C. Blomeyer photographic collection, box 2, folder 9.
The club’s president, Dr. J.W. Hale, estimated that the fire’s destruction of the facility amounted to $70,000. In 1917, that was a hefty sum—in today’s money, that would equal nearly $2.3 million! Apart from the clubhouse, estimated at $35,000, and furnishings, the club’s stock of golf equipment for sale, and members’ personal gear were lost as well.
A report published soon after the fire in Safety Engineering, “Recent Fires and Their Lessons,” stated “Cause unknown” for the Huaco Club fire. But fire investigators concluded that losses were aided in part by the club’s late fire alarm system causing a delayed response by firefighters. It was also believed that its construction of easily combustible material enabled structures to become quickly engulfed by the flames.
The Huaco Club was the first golfing facility of its kind in Waco. In a 1915 article in The Waco Morning News, James Hays Quarles attributes Walter V. Fort with bringing golf to Waco in 1896. Fort was inspired by golf courses he saw in Dallas and worked with other prominent local citizens to assemble assets needed to establish a golf club.
A view of one of the many luxurious spaces at the Huaco Club’s clubhouse. This three-story building was once host to many social gatherings. The club not only served as a golf course but also hosted luncheons, dinner parties, dances, weddings, and banquets. Many of these occasions were mentioned in the society columns of Waco newspapers. Roy Ellsworth Lane collection, box 1, folder 16.
The charter for the Huaco Club was organized and signed on May 20, 1910. It called for $40,000 to be raised with 200 members purchasing shares of $200 apiece. The charter stated: “The purpose for which this corporation is formed is to support and maintain a country club for the promotion and encouragement of outdoor life, the games of golf and tennis and other innocent sports and amusements.” In 1913, the shareholder number met its goal. By October 1915, it had 183 stockholders with 63 associate members.
The club was more than just about sports—it was a meeting place for many Wacoans and out of town visitors. Many well-known Waco businessmen and prominent male and female citizens were on its membership rolls. The club frequently hosted luncheons, dinner parties, dances, weddings, and banquets, mentioned in the society columns of Waco newspapers on many occasions.
The remains of the white limestone mantel, a gift from the Huaco clubhouse’s architect, Roy Lane, mostly withstood the inferno. Here, it stands isolated as one of the last noticeable features of a once prominent building. E.C. Blomeyer photographic collection, box 2, folder 9.
Even though the Huaco Club and its contents were insured for approximately $26,000—far less than the $70,000 loss caused by the fire—plans for another golf facility were soon made. Chartered on August 27, 1917, and built circa 1920, the remaining club members opened a new facility, Spring Lake Country Club, at Day’s Lake in what is now Lacy-Lakeview. It included a larger course with 18 holes and an elaborate clubhouse. In a similar fashion as its predecessor, the new club continued to carry on various recreational as well as social functions. Meanwhile, the land the club occupied around 29th and Sanger Avenue was developed into one of Waco’s early “suburbs.”
The early days of golfing in the Waco area did have its setbacks and losses. But the sport that was once referred to as “pasture pool,” played in areas shared with grazing cattle, overcame such setbacks as the Huaco Club fire. Indeed, the love of the game, as well as the way it brings people together, still makes golf and its related activities thrive to this day, in and around Waco.
See more photos of the Huaco Club—before and after—in the Flickr slideshow below.
Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph and postcard collections. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.
Postcards dated 1908 and undated
Waco’s first courthouse was built in 1850 and was just a one and a half story log structure that survived in the town for about six years. McLennan County was named after Neil McLennan, who settled along the South Bosque River.
The fourth and final courthouse (pictured in these postcards) was built in 1901. Architect J. Riely Gordon, renowned for his Texas courthouse designs, was inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica and used materials such as steel, limestone, and Texas red granite. Design attributes include classical columns, pilasters, triangular pediments, rusticated masonry and a mid-roof dome embellished with Greek influenced eagles and statues.
The dome is topped with a statue of Themis, the Greek goddess of divine law and justice. She is supposed to hold the scales of justice in her left hand and a sword in her right, but various storms over the years have taken these props. Currently, she is missing her entire left arm (lost in a June 2014 storm).
The McLennan County courthouse is located on Courthouse Square with the entrance facing Washington Avenue and is a recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Sources
Kelley, Dayton. The Handbook of Waco and McLennan County, Texas. Waco, TX: Texian, 1972. 73-74. Print.
“McLennan County Courthouse.”McLennan County Courthouse Waco Texas. Texas Escapes Online Magazine, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2015.
Texas Jewish Historical Society members exploring display in Texas Collection reading room. The materials on display for society members to view included representative items from over nineteen collections documenting the life and faith experience of Jewish people in Waco.
On January 24, The Texas Collection welcomed the Texas Jewish Historical Society to a special display of materials on Jewish life and faith in Central Texas. Members of the society viewed many different kinds of materials, including:
a letter to a German Jewish family by the German secret police, warning them to leave the country (they later came to Waco, Texas),
an elaborate green velvet scrapbook with photographs from the 1800s of the Goldstein family in Waco,
photographs of Jewish-owned businesses in Waco, such as the Goldstein-Migel and Sanger Brothers department stores,
membership cards and past meeting pamphlets from the Texas Jewish Historical Society, and
photographs of Temple Rodef Sholom and Congregation Agudath Jacob in Waco from the early 1900s.
Photographic scrapbook of the Goldstein family in Waco, Texas, from the early 1900s.
All together, The Texas Collection has more than 20 Jewish-related collections available for researchers to explore. Most of these collections are unprocessed, meaning they are not yet described through a finding aid in BARD or housed in modern acid-free boxes and folders. However, two Jewish collections have been processed recently, the De Cordova Family papers 1845-1956 and the Waco Chapter of Hadassah records 1928-2009, and we hope to process the rest of them soon. Stay tuned for more news about our Jewish collections!
E.C. Blomeyer and camera, Cameron Park, Waco, TX, circa 1917. Edward C. Blomeyer photographic collection, 1906-1923, number 001.
By Geoff Hunt, Audio and Visual Curator
Edward Charles “E.C.” Blomeyer’s time in Texas was brief but well-documented. From telephone poles to animals, floods to parades, and much more, the amateur shutterbug committed many views of early 1900s Texas to film—and we reap the benefit today with the Edward C. Blomeyer photographic collection.
Born in Missouri in 1882, Blomeyer moved in 1912 with his family to Waco, Texas, to work as auditor for the Brazos Valley Telegraph and Telephone Company. He came with knowledge of the telephone industry gained while working for the Southeast Missouri Telephone Company in Charleston, Missouri, where he served as rate collector and in management. He would spend only eight years in Texas, but his knowledge and experience quickly helped to improve a rural, and in some areas quite primitive, telecommunications network.
A primitively constructed rural telephone pole serving as a junction point for several lines in Central Texas. Edward C. Blomeyer photographic collection, 1906-1923, number 497-1.
In 1914, Blomeyer began working for the Texas Telephone Company after it expanded to include many independent companies in Lorena, Mart, McGregor, Moody, Waco, West, and the Brazos Valley Telegraph and Telephone Company. This expansion of the Texas Telephone Company gave Blomeyer many opportunities for improving the existing telecommunications infrastructure. He first served as secretary-treasurer of the Waco-based Texas Telephone Company and worked his way up to be president by 1918.
But Blomeyer wasn’t just a career man—he was a photographer as well, capturing many images of Waco. He recorded many scenes of this booming city including trains, airplanes, bridges, rivers, animals, military, the cotton industry, and significant events. His professional interests overlapped with his hobby, providing a rare look into the early telecommunications network in and around McLennan County. These scenes include many early telephone poles—some of which are just sticks with wire attached to barbed wire fence posts! Additionally, Blomeyer documented his travels, with destinations ranging from Galveston, Texas, to Niagara Falls.
Texas Governor Jim Ferguson is seen here riding in the Texas Cotton Palace parade as his wagon makes its way on Austin Avenue, Waco. Edward C. Blomeyer photographic collection, number 504-1.
In 1920, Waco lost one of its pioneering men in the telecommunications industry. Blomeyer went to work for the Automatic Electric Company, based in Chicago. He stayed with the company as it changed ownership throughout the years, eventually merging with what would become GTE (General Telephone & Electronics). Blomeyer retired from the telephone industry in 1956, having worked his way up to the position of Vice-President of GTE. After retirement, he spent some of his remaining years in Palm Beach, Florida, where he died in 1964.
When The Texas Collection acquired Blomeyer’s photographic collection in 2012, consisting of approximately 1,500 photographic negatives and prints, they were neatly filed in a tattered old box. Its original owner or photographer was not known—the seller from whom we purchased it thought the creator was Fred Gildersleeve, a noted Waco photographer. However, Gildersleeve was just the person who developed several of the printed photographs. But we needed more information to tell properly the story behind these photos and the person who took them.
The Texas Cotton Palace, Main Building, Waco, TX, circa 1915. Edward C. Blomeyer photographic collection, 1906-1923, number 689-1.
The first big lead in our case was a small business card sandwiched between a group of negatives. It read: “E.C. [Edward Charles] Blomeyer, Waco, Texas, President of the Texas Telephone Co.” The subjects in the pictures helped confirm Blomeyer as the photographer and creator of the collection. Now that there was a name to link this collection to, we turned to the Internet. Blomeyer turns out to have been a prolific writer of articles on the telephone industry and its management, photography, and various hobbies, we learned from several digitized magazines.
The items in the collection date from 1906 to about 1923. Although he was not a professional photographer, his high-quality work provides a great history of the Central Texas community. Blomeyer was an interesting person to research. He left many traces about what he did professionally through his writings and about many aspects of his personal and family life through his photography.
This post shows just a small sampling of Blomeyer’s work—look for our upcoming series on Blomeyer’s photography, Texas in the Teens. We’ll travel with Blomeyer all over Texas (and maybe outside the state, too), and take a look at transportation, animals, and more.
Check out our Flickr set below for your first view of Blomeyer’s work. You can see more images in the finding aid in BARD—just do a search for Blomeyer, then enjoy!
Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph collection. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of GIFs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.
Construction photos by Gildersleeve, 1911; modern photo (photographer unknown), 1984
The ALICO, now a Waco landmark, was started in 1910 and completed in 1911, by the architecture firm Sanguinet and Staats, with the help of famous architect Roy Ellsworth Lane.
The parcel of land that the building currently sits on at the intersection of 5th and Austin Ave was home to several things before the ALICO came along. The first recorded use of the land was a small pond that served as a buffalo watering hole and fishing spot. Around the time of the Civil War, the pond had dried up, and a blacksmith shop was built by W.E. Oakes. The site was eventually home to a bank, which was present until being torn down to build the ALICO.
At 22 stories, the building was so large that people as far away as McGregor could see its construction with binoculars. It even made it into a Ripley’s Believe it or Not comic in the 1930s. At the time of its construction, it was the first skyscraper in Texas, making it the tallest building in Texas. It held this title until the construction of the Magnolia in Dallas in 1922.
Austin Avenue, before (early 1900s) and after (1910s) the ALICO
The ALICO was originally the home of and contracted by the Amicable Life Insurance Company, as well as being the home of several prominent lawyers, organizations, and various other businesses such as the Corner Drug Store (creators of Dr Pepper).
The building weighs approximately 40 million pounds and required 2,004 freight cars worth of material to construct. The ALICO survived a direct hit by the 1953 tornado due to the wind resistant designs of Roy Lane, even though the RT Dennis building across the street was completely demolished.
Sources:
“The New Amicable Life Building.” Waco Tribune Herald 12 Sep. 1954. Print.
Each month, we post a processing update to notify our readers about the latest collections that have finding aids online and are primed for research. Here are November’s finding aids:
How would you answer the questions on this test? This comprehensive history honors exam represents one of various subject exams from 1938-1941. BU records: Honors Program #BU/108 , box 2, folder 10.
Foy Valentine papers, 1918-2000 (#2948): Materials documenting the life of Foy Valentine, a leader in various Baptist organizations and Baptist philosophy on ethics.
It was popular in the mid-1800s to handwrite poems in the personal notebooks of friends and family. Here we see Sarah Pier’s grandmother dedicating a poem to her. What poems would you dedicate to your friends and family? Sarah C. Pier Wiley papers #139, box 1, folder 6.
Images from Waco–Streets–Franklin Avenue photo file
Postcards dated 1908 and undated
