This month we launched our new “Waco, Texas History in Pictures” online magazine, but now, if you’re in Waco, you can get a hard copy!

Firmin Business Forms in Waco has agreed to print our magazine for those who request them. This is a beautiful, 16-page, full color rendering, filled with Waco History. The cost is $ 10.00 per magazine, which only covers the cost of printing. I want to be clear that neither I nor this group will benefit financially from this… you will only be paying printing cost. Of course, you are welcome to print your own at home…but it might surprise you how much ink it takes!

We appreciate the Firmin’s willingness to help us. Here is their information:

Firmin Business Forms
202 Deb
Waco, Texas 76712
254-776-5742

Chatham’s Drive-In, 1955-1976
Ford Chatham & C.L. Chatham
West Waco Drive & Valley Mills Drive

Ford Chatham and C.L. Chatham bought what had been Steve’s Café in 1955, and opened Chatham’s Drive-In. It was a very popular place for friends, dates and families. It was known for steak baskets, fish baskets, and fried chicken baskets. It also had a very imaginative drink menu…The Purple Cow, for instance! The signs showed below were displayed on the front of Chatham’s. And the drinks came complete with plastic monkeys, giraffes, mermaids, and an assortment of other trinkets that adorned the glasses.

These photos of those signs were digitally restored by Dr. Spencer Moore.

This very old postcard, labeled “Austin Avenue” was never mailed, so we don’t know the exact date. But written on the sidebar is “ The most prosperous and finest street in Waco. Here, all the best stores are located. The larger structure at the end of the street is the court house”.

Note: Notice the street car tracks, and the street car in the distance. The larger building at the end of the street is the old Waco City Hall.

The well-loved Lake Air Mall was at Wooded Acres and Bosque from 1960 to 2001. The anchor stores were Montgomery Ward and Goldstein Migel.

The Chicken Shack, located at 909 North Loop Drive, was one of Waco’s well-loved restaurants. Opened in 1934 by Frank L. Strange, Wacoans loved the Chicken Shack’s specialty, Leslie’s Fried Chicken. They were also known for their homemade rolls…served with butter and honey! An additional location was opened in the 1970s at
1724 South Valley Mills Drive.

Both locations are gone now, but anyone who knew it can remember the amazing taste, and many would say it was the best fried chicken they ever ate!

“As Goes Old Dobbin So Goes The Old Buggy Whip”

(Originally published in the Waco Tribune Herald, October 13, 1929.)

Why does tying a slow horse to a post improve his gait?

If you are familiar with the days when the “class” of Waco came to town via phaeton and buggy behind gentle old Dobbin, you will raise your hand eagerly to give teacher the answer.

But since there are only a few reminders of that grand old day when hitching posts were thicker than “no parking” signs along Austin Avenue, and every home of consequence in Waco sported a fine team of buggy horses and several carriages of different size and purpose, you will have to be told.

When a slow horse is tied to a post, it makes him fast.

Recalling the days when he was hitchboy for Goldstein and Migel’s, Harvey Alexander says he was called upon to do everything from merely tying the horses when they were driven up to the curb, to selling goods in the store.

LOTS OF EXCITEMENT
All of the prominent people of Waco would drive up in their carriages and Harvey would tie their horses while the women would dismount and do the shopping. When time was limited, he would run into the store and get the articles the women wanted. When clerks were busy with other customers, Harvey would go behind one of the counters where business was rushing and help with the selling.

“Sometimes the horses would be frightened by streetcars and then there would be lots of excitement,” declared Alexander. “The horses would try to jump out of the harness and it was my duty to unhitch them and get them straightened out,” he said.

FEW HITCH RINGS LEFT
With the inroads of “gas buggies” the signs of yesteryear have just about disappeared from Waco. In front of R.E. Cox Dry Goods company are a few rings left in the curb and there are some others in front of W.T. Grant’s. On Sixth Street in front of the State House hotel are two stone blocks with rings in them. The blocks are worn with the years and the corners are nearer being round than square.

Clint Padgitt recalls some of the old customs during the time that he attended Baylor University. He said that the place where the fence on the south side of the athletic field behind the science hall was the hitching place for the student’s horses. There all of the young men of the university tied the horses that drew the two-wheeled carts.

Fifth Street from Webster to Speight avenue was the “race track” according to Padgitt.

ARRESTED FOR SPEEDING
“It was a good street and we whipped up our horses there and raced up to the university but lots of the boys were arrested for speeding and we had to be careful when we did race,” he said.
There are rings in the sidewalk along the Fifth Street side of Baylor and several old posts that have been broken off during the years, but still wear the coat of green paint. In front of the Baade home at 503 North Fifth Street are two iron posts, and, according to Padgitt, Bailey Slayden was killed when his team started to run away at Fifth and Marlboro and the front axle of the buggy caught on one of the same posts and threw the driver out.

Another hitching post, which belonged to W.H. Jones, known then as “Uncle Billy” is owned by J.W. Mann. The post was moved from its original place in front of “Uncle Billy’s” home at 822 Austin to Fifteenth and Columbus and at the time of his death was given to Mann. This “post” was in the form of a little Negro boy, made of iron, holding out a ring.

DIFFERENT HITCHING REINS
There are several other old hitching posts in Waco, Padgitt said. There were two kinds of hitching reins. One was called bridal hitching rein and other was called the neck hitching rein. The people who lived out on the farms had a way all of their own of tying their horses. They would tie the lines to the wheel of the buggy or carriage and when the horses would start up the lines would get tighter as the wheel turned. The expressmen had weights on their lines and when they dismounted from the drays they would drop the weight to the street and the horses would be “tied”.

Fritz O. Patzkie used to drive a carry-all for Manchester and Clisbee, then the largest livery stable in Waco, Padgitt related. He would drive four horses to the wagon when the Masonic lodge would attend a funeral or some other function and needed a conveyance that could carry several people.

SO GOES THE WHIP
The buggy whip is going the way of the hitching post, too. Only about three or four dozen are sold during the year, and most of them are sent to St. Francisville, La., the last stronghold of the horse and buggy. Only one or two are sold within the city limits and the rest are used by farmers.

Baylor girls have taken advantage of the technicality regarding the “no car riding after 6 o’clock” rule of the university and on occasion have hired buggies from the Riverside livery stable, according to Sam Alexander, proprietor.

Alexander did not say that the men students took the same advantage.

In 1886, Waco had officially been a town for 37 years. The population was 16,000. The Suspension Bridge was sixteen years old, the Washington Avenue Bridge was 16 years in the future, and the Amicable Building was 25 years in the future. Trees grew along the rivers, but all the surrounding area was mostly treeless prairie land. In this artist’s/balloonist’s view, we can see the vast, open prairie that was North Waco. It still looked much like this when Camp MacArthur was built in 1916. Many things have changed…but the old Brazos De Dios…the Arms of God, was rolling along and wrapping around our city…just as it does today!

Mary Holliday
and the
Jones’ Fine Bread Kiddie Matinee Show
(1926-1956)

This is a great article written by Terri Jo Mosley, featuring Jennifer Warren and some of her photos.

This article was in the Waco Tribune Herald on Monday, October 23, 2006.

We are excited to share our first-ever “Waco, Texas History in Pictures Magazine”. This pdf is best viewed on a laptop. It can also be printed at home or sent to a professional printer. Many thanks to all who contributed photos to this.

Vol. I, No. 1 February, 2021 Russell Lee Visits Waco, Waco’s Cow Pasture Golf Course by Virginia Plunkett, The Great Snow of 2021, Past Snow Days in Waco, Our New Website, Where Were They?, Happy St. Valentine’s Day. Click the photo below to view.

It’s been spelled many ways and in many languages…at least thirty! This list was compiled by historian Scott Wallace, and was included in the book “Waco: Texas Crossroads” (1983) by Patricia Ward Wallace.