Waco History Podcast

During cold weather, most people want to huddle inside around heat sources, but some jobs force people to brave the elements. Waco businessman and historian Roger Conger delivered groceries for J. C. Crippen & Sons as a teenager in the 1920s. He recalls a winter delivery to Waco High English teacher Marie Leslie that can only be described as a learning experience: "Her house was on the west side of North Eighteenth Street right across from Providence Hospital. And I pulled across the street to the wrong side of the street, it was. In other words, I was heading north, and it's a steep, downward hill there. And I pulled against the curb, and there was ice on the curbs that particular Saturday. Was a cold, cold day. I left my engine running, and I pulled the combination clutch release and brake of a Model T, which is to your left hand. I pulled that up and thought that I had locked the brakes. Left the engine running, went around to the back, got her order off, and went inside Miss Leslie's house and delivered h

Many memories from our youth are intertwined with those of school, the place where we were making friends and developing interests. Waco native Helen Geltemeyer shares a treasured memory from her schooldays: "My earliest memories of Bell's Hill is going to school, walking every morning and with our dog, Tex, following my sister and I and maybe my brother. And the dog would stand at the door of this far end, the east end of the school, and we'd say, Tex, go home! And he'd finally go home. Every day that dog went to school with us. And I loved that school because you could see one end to the other. And the floors were just so clean and nice, and we had such a good time. All my teachers were—seemed to be so lovely." She recalls her older brother Ross and his friends: "And a lot of them had donkeys around there across the street. My brother was one of them. They loved to take their donkey to school, Hardy Jones and he, to feed—they were under these mesquite trees. They'd go over there and water them. We thought t

Pawnbroking—or lending money on portable security—is one of the world's oldest professions. It can be traced back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire in the West and to China three thousand years ago in the East. Hank Josephs of Corpus Christi remembers he got the idea to change his family's dry goods store into a pawn shop during WWII: "Our sergeant would lend the guys five bucks on their watches, their service watches, and when they got paid two weeks later, they'd pay him back ten dollars. I said, ‘That's a hell of a deal. I want in on that deal.'" Josephs recalls one of the more bizarre stories that came out of the shop: "The one in which a guy walked in and said, ‘I want to borrow five bucks on my eye.' Had a prosthetic eye. Pulled it out of his head. He had gotten it in the service. He says, ‘I want five dollars; I need a—need a bottle of wine.' I loaned him five dollars on the wine. Some people came in later—he never did come back. People came in later and said, What's the strangest thing you ever t

Some of the clearest memories from our youth usually include times we got in trouble. Victor Newman of Waco grew up amidst cowboys in West Texas. In 1923, at the age of ten, he came to live at the recently opened Waco State Home. Newman explains how the home reacted to his cowboy ways: "Well, every time I turned around, well, somebody would grab me up and give me a spanking because of something that I said. And so finally, well, one man there, he spanked me one day. He said, ‘Do you know why I spanked you?' I says, ‘Yeah, because you're bigger than I am.' He said no. He—but they realized the language I was using was what I had heard all my life out there on the ranch. I didn't know I was saying anything wrong." Benny Martinez of Goliad recalls getting caught in his brief life of crime in the 1940s: "I remember once, my brother and I were stealing watermelons—and that's something we country boys did. We used to go in the river here by the rail—where the train crossed, and we were naked as a jaybird. We'd go ac

Bullies are people who try to harm or intimidate others who they perceive as weaker. It starts in childhood. Maggie Langham Washington moved to Waco in the fifth grade and remembers how she was an easy target for bullies: "If you were a minister's child that's new in a school, you saw hard time, a real hard time because kids would do things to you just because they felt like you weren't supposed to do anything back to them because you were a minister's—you were preacher's child, preacher's brat. And after a while that got a little old with me. I decided that I wanted to be a regular person." Washington recalls a story involving a girl who others had told her was cruel: "And we were playing pass ball, and I was a tomboy. I could jump, leap high, and get that ball. So she decided, let me guard her, and I heard her. I trembled in my boots. I kept letting her get the ball, and finally I decided this is just not going to work. So when I knew they were throwing the ball to her, I just stepped in front of her and ju

Swimming is a favorite summer activity in Texas, as it provides respite from sweltering temperatures. Charles Armstrong grew up in the Bell's Hill area of Waco and describes where he and other boys would go to cool off: "And from Twenty-ninth Street over where the Baylor stadium is now, there was a fence across there, and it wasn't anything but mesquite patch up there where the stadium is. And it had a little—back over there by the railroad track, had a creek come through there, and it was pretty clear water and had swimming hole up there called Little Lake. And we'd go up there and go swimming in Little Lake. And it was—you had to cut across that pasture there by where the stadium is now to get down to it." The swimming hole was isolated, and the boys were very informal, as Armstrong explains: "If you had some swimming trunks, fine. If you didn't, fine. You could just go in naked, whatever. (laughter) And when a train come along, we all got up and paraded for them as they come by. They'd [be] sitting there w

An annual tradition for many students and teachers is looking for summer employment. During the 1940s, these jobs were becoming easier to find, with a recovering American economy and the war overseas. Jane Martin, former missionary in East Africa, lists a few of the summer jobs that she held in the 1940s to pay her way through Mars Hill College in North Carolina: "I worked for the government at the Department of Interior, and I worked for the Department of Navy." Interviewer: "In Washington, DC, those things are possible." "You know, but you don't say that I—you were sorting mail and things like that. (both laugh) You weren't—yes. I worked one summer for a community program for underprivileged children. I worked for a department store, but I wasn't working in the store; I was in the warehouse. And to my amazement, they came to me one day, and I thought, Oh my, have I done something wrong? They said, Come with us. We want to talk to you about something. And they put me on the loading dock, as a fourteen-year-o

Originally Aired 06/2019 In this episode In one afternoon, 114 people lost their lives and Downtown Waco’s skyline was forever changed. Eric Ames, Assistant Director for Marketing & Communication for the Baylor University Libraries and ITS, walks us through the day the 1953 tornado touched down. We talk about the damage the storm caused, stories of hope in the aftermath, and ways the tornado’s effects are still felt today. You can find Eric’s book on Waco on Amazon, and most places books are found. Be sure and follow Waco Walks to learn about other historic walks in town.  The photo in the album artwork for this episode was used with permission by the Texas Collection at Baylor University. The Texas Collection is Baylor University's oldest special collections library and serves as the University Archive that collects, preserves, and provides access to materials on the history, heritage and culture of Texas. Learn more on their website.  About the podcast The Waco History Podcast is co-hosted by Randy Lane an

Since its dedication in 1910, Waco's Cameron Park has grown from 125 to more than 400 acres, with land gifts from the Cameron family, and has provided children with countless hours of exercise and enjoyment. Charlie Turner of Hewitt recalls playing in the park as a young boy in the 1950s and 60s: "There were some little wading pools we would go play in, and then, of course, I would get in trouble every now and then because after I got in the wading pool, I'd get back in the dirt by the flowers but had a real good time. And, you know, it was just a great place to play because where I lived, there was no grass in the backyard. So going into a park like Cameron Park, it was like a kid's dream because there were all the trees down near the Pecan Bottoms. There were these big swings that I remember and this merry-go-round and the seesaws, and then there was a climbing ladder and then the monkey bars. "Every now and then—I had an old Tonka truck. It was a moving van Tonka truck that I had a string on, and I'd take

Among southern states, Texas was a leader in the desegregation of public education. In 1964, Texas accounted for approximately 60 percent of integrated school districts in the South. Robert Lewis Gilbert was the first black teacher to be hired in a white school in Waco and describes taking on that position: "Everybody was telling me before I went, Well, you know, white kids, you're going to really have to do something to teach them, you know. And—and there was a kind of a question in my mind as to whether or not I would be able to keep up with these kids if they were so smart. But after a few moments of observation during my student teaching, I detected that there were some—some geniuses, some average, and some mediocre whites just as there were blacks. And, boy, I said, ‘Well, you know, this is'—it dawned on me that, you know, people are people. And those kids, many of them, they'd looked for guidance toward knowledge, and they were looking for me to pour it out. And many people had me under the impression t

Waco History talks with Justice Matt Johnson on the history of the McLennan County's Courthouse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mission of Historic Waco is to preserve the heritage of Waco and McLennan County, Texas for future generations and to present enriching diverse historical experiences for audiences of all ages. Our mission is fulfilled through educational programming, community lectures, diverse exhibitions, and through our three interpreted house museums that are open to the public: Earle-Napier-Kinnard House, East Terrace House, and McCulloch House. President of Historic Waco Eric Ames Executive Director: Erik Swanson https://www.historicwaco.org/strategic-plan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Waco.. A Fantastical History with Ashley Bean Thornton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Sloan talks to Waco Civic Theater Interim Executive Director Kelly M. about upcoming and past events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In August 1910 on the corner of Fifth & Austin in downtown Waco, construction began on a state-of-the-art, steel-frame office building. Founders and board members of the newly formed Amicable Life Insurance Company had originally planned a structure with eight stories, but that number soon rose to seventeen and then twenty-two. Construction on the building, known as the "ALICO Building," lasted a year and was the talk of the town, with crowds of onlookers common. Lee Lockwood remembers being in those crowds: "They would carry those big steel beams clear up to the top of that building, and we'd just stand there with our mouth open." Mary Sendón recalls the town's attitude toward the structure: "My dad said, ‘That's crazy! What are they going to do? Put up one skyscraper in this little town?' And everybody made fun of it right at first because it was so tall. And when Will Rogers came to Waco and spoke at the auditorium—the old auditorium—he said that Waco was a tall skyscraper surrounded by Baptist churches. (

During the Great Depression, newspapers struggled alongside other businesses throughout the country, as many of their customers were having to pinch pennies like never before. At the time of this 1974 interview, Harlon Fentress was chairman of the board of directors of Newspapers Incorporated, which owned the Waco Tribune-Herald. He recounts his days in the advertising department of the Waco News-Tribune during the early thirties: "We had a good many promotions because business was bad in those days, and we would create events which would supply advertising. Well, let's say we had a Father's Day coming up. Most of the merchants didn't pay much attention to it. We would create a Father's Day special edition or a special section of the paper. Things of that nature." In addition to the Waco papers, in the 1930s Newspapers Incorporated owned several small-town newspapers in Texas. Fentress recalls the challenge of collecting payments in Breckenridge, where the bulk of distribution was rural: "Our circulation man

Even with its dry spells, wind, and blistering heat, Waco has enjoyed a bounty of flowers over the years. Mary Sendón recalls the Cotton Palace expositions held in the early 1900s in the Bell's Hill area: "They kept the grounds so beautiful. You never saw so many chrysanthemums in all your life as you would see at the Cotton Palace. They planted those things early. Every row that led up to the new—there were several different areas—they led to the main building—and every one was bordered with chrysanthemum flower beds. And they had the flower building, the florist building there, with all of the flowers. Florists came together even from outside and had beautiful arrangements." Florist Harry Reed describes a few of the local flowers his family sold before it became common to import flowers from all over the world: "We raised a lot of marigolds in the summertime. That's a crop that you can—an outdoor crop that you can grow. We grew dahlias, a lot of dahlias, because we couldn't get much else. And the flower now

This is Living Stories, featuring voices from the collections of the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. I'm Louis Mazé. In 1881, Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Co. formed with the purpose of operating exchanges in Arkansas and Texas. The company took over exchanges in Galveston and Houston and started several others across the state. Waco's very own telephone exchange opened in the fall of 1881 with 45 subscribers. Robert Lee Lockwood remembers the calling situation in the early 1900s: "We had two telephones in Waco. There were two different and separate telephone systems. We called it at that time ‘the old and the new phone.' And they were just as separate and independent as could be. And we had two telephones, and I remember our phone number: 2-2-5. It was a low number. And that's when—when we got our phone, that was how many phones were in the city of Waco on that system, and then the other system came in. And it was really—you almost had to have two phones if you wanted to reach everybody

Dr. Sloan talks with guest Rick Tullis about Wacoan WD Custead and his claim of being the first in flight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Sloan chats with Sean Sutcliffe about the history of the Waco Fire Department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices