USA > Texas > The encyclopedia of Texas, V.1 > Part 114
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In 1901, at Dublin, Texas, Miss Jessie Miller, a Texas girl, became the bride of Mr. Mayfield. They have two children-Josephine, age nineteen, and Herbert, age sixteen. The family resides at 1200 Filmore St. Mr. Mayfield is a member of the Elks, the Wichita Club and the Forrest Country Club and the Chamber of Commerce. As president of an aggressive and able company, with already a big business to their credit, Mr. Mayfield will be a leader in oil activities for many years to come.
EDWARD A. HILL, President of the Hill Com- pany, 711 Mrs. Dan Waggoner Building, is a geologist by profession and an oil operator for profit, and occupies a prominent place in both profession and business in the oil industry of Texas.
The Hill Company, which was organized in April, 1919, by Mr. Hill and associates, has considerable acreage and producing oil wells in North Texas, where the outlook for continued production is good.
Mr. Hill is a Kentuckian by birth, born at Owens- boro August 14, 1876. His father, J. F. Hill, was a prominent business man of that city. His mother was Miss Elinor E. Moore of Ohio.
After several years instruction under a private tutor, Mr. Hill entered Yale University and attended that institution with the class of 1896. Two years later he studied with the Leeds Classes under Dr. Geikie, a noted geologist, and concluded his geo- logical studies at Edinborough, Scotland, in 1889. . After returning from Scotland, Mr. Hill spent four
Like all other Texas oil men, he is a booster for Fort Worth and attributes the city's recent remark- able growth to the development of the oil business in North Texas. The city has profited by the pub- licity it has received, he says, and will continue to grow into one of the leading cities of the Southwest.
Mr. Hill lives at the Hickman Apartments. He is a member of the Elks Lodge at Oklahoma City, the International Research Society of London and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.
HAS. W. SMITH. "Its the best" means Smith's ice cream. Mr. Chas. W. Smith, president of Smith's Ice Cream Factory of 2125 North Harwood Street, is a real pioneer in the Dallas ice cream business. In 1899, although at that time there was no forewarning of prohibition and the consequent boost in ice cream consumption, Mr. Smith saw the possibilities of making money in ice cream and started to manufac- ture this product in a small factory equipped with hand freezers, the finished delicacy being delivered to customers by a one horse drawn wagon.
Today the modern sanitary Smith factory has a daily ouput of three thousand gallons. The cream is frozen by direct expansion, the most improved method, ice and salt being used only to ship the cream. Seventeen trucks and three teams and wagons are needed for its distribution. This cream is sold wholesale not only to retail dealers in Dallas but in North Texas within a one hundred mile radius of this city.
The company owns the property upon which it is located and does about $500,000 business per year. There are 40 people in the organization and it was the first to place its freezing room in plain view of the public passing by the factory and Mr. Smith has led the way in every manner in the manufacturing of ice cream.
"The ice cream business today is only in its in- fancy," Mr. Smith states confidently. "Where we have an output today of three thousand gallons, in the next five years we will be manufacturing at least six thousand gallons."
Mr. Smith was born and reared in Dallas County and says that he intends to stay where he is-in the best town in the Southwest. Mr. Smith's parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Smith, were old Dallas settlers. His mother was the daughter of Mr. J. B Bachman, the former owner of the Bachman's Dam property, who settled there in 1854. Mr. Smith was born in 1876 and educated in the Dallas public schools. After he left his father's farm, Mr. Smith became manager of the Pasteurized Milk Company, which position he held for about two years until he de- cided to go into the ice cream business.
In 1897 Mr. Smith was married to Miss Jimmie May, a Dallas girl, whose people also had been among the first Dallas settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have three children, Chas. Russell. Helen Rhea and James Louis. Their home is at 4003 Rawlins Street. Mr. Smith is well-known in lodge circles, being a 32d degree Mason, a Shriner, a member of Hella Temple, and Dallas Blue Lodge No. 760. As a member of
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the Rotary Club and the Dallas Chamber of Com- merce he is actively behind every progressive busi- ness movement.
B. THOMAS, owner of the Thomas Confec- tionery Company, has become so vitally as- sociated with the confectionery business that his name is almost a synonym for
"sweets." The phenomenal growth of his trade makes it apparent that it has been directed by one who not only knows the public taste but who also sees to it that nothing but the best is offered. Mr. Thomas was not driven into the confectionery busi- ness as the result of prohibition but early in life he recognized it as supplying a line of commodities for which the American public would always furnish a demand. Perhaps no group of establishments in the South have made fuller provision for the "sweet tooth" than the Thomas stores. In 1909 the first of these stores was established and one by one their number has been increased until there are now five of them in addition to a wholesale factory and none would dare prophesy what the end will be. Each of these stores handles a full line of candies, ice cream, luncheonettes, bakery goods and cigars.
Mr. Thomas was born in Parker County, Texas, in May, 1882. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Thomas Sr., have for many years been members of the well- to-do farming class of Parker county. They be- queathed to their son that rare business insight and tireless industry which has been the basis of his success.The public schools of Texas are responsible for his formal education. As a boy Mr. Thomas worked in a confectionery shop and no doubt received there many of the ideas and business principles which have since been used to such fine advantage. For a time he was employed as a traveling salesman be- fore coming to Dallas but his real place in life was not found till he entered the confectionery business for himself. His business career is another example of men who wander a bit before settling into the enterprise for which they are permanently fitted.
In 1913 Mr. Thomas was married to Miss Helen Hacher of Dallas. There are no children. The Thomas home is located at 3520 Beverly Drive.
Few men have achieved so thoroughly a mastery of the confectionery business in all its details as has Mr. Thomas. It would be difficult to find a better illustration of the high degree of efficiency that has been attained by constant application to a definite field. However, he has not allowed his interests to be narrowed to his own particular enterprise, but his record as a member of the Puritan Lodge, the Chamber of Commerce and the Retail Confectioners Association shows that he has taken an active inter- est in the community welfare and has responded willingly and liberally to the demands which neces- sarily devolve upon a loyal citizen.
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ILLARD A. WALLACE, president of the Adolphus Man's Shop (men's furnishing goods), established this business in July, 1919, in company with J. D. Hoard, vice- president and J. E. Payne, Jr., secretary-treasurer. Their choice of location, the Adolphus Hotel build- ing, from which the firm took it's name, was a most fortunate one, as it is in the heart of the business and hotel district of Dallas, thus drawing not only local patronage but that of the traveling public as well, and evidences the good business judgment of the firm, while the volume of their business during
the first year proves their ability to supply the modern fashions and cater to the taste of a particu- lar clientele.
Born in Mckinney, Texas, in 1889, Mr. Wallace received his education in the public schools of that city. He was attracted to the men's furnishing business and on leaving school entered the men's department of one of the large department stores of Wichita Falls, Texas, where he remained until 1911, when he went with Washer Bros., of Fort Worth, Texas, in the same department, leaving that firm to take a similar position with Sol Dreyfus of Dallas. In 1918 he became connected with the Kin- sella Hat Company of Dallas, traveling throughout the state of Oklahoma for that concern. Having had a very thorough training in various lines of his chosen business, Mr. Wallace decided to open an establishment of his own, which he did in July, 1919, the immediate success of which undertaking proved his ability and thorough fitness.
He was married to Miss Vallie Skinner of Wichita Falls, in 1909. They have one daughter, Marion, nine years of age, who is at present attending school in Dallas. The family reside at 450212 Junius Avenue, Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Wallace is a member of the Dallas Athletic Club, which promises to be one of the most pro- gressive clubs of the city, if not of the entire Southwest.
LARENCE E. KENNEMER, general man- ager of the Columbia Manufacturing Com- pany, 309 Dundee Street, manufacturers and wholesale dealers in ice, has been connected with the ice and cold storage business in Texas for almost twenty years and is now in active charge of one of the largest plants in the city and one of the largest and most modern: cold storage plants in the state.
The Columbia Manufacturing Company has done its full share to break the spell of summer and to make life bearable in a Southern city even in Au- gust. Through its prompt and efficient service it has established an enviable reputation and serves an extensive patronage. A daily output of approxi- mately 260 tons of ice is produced. In addition to his duties with the Columbia Company Mr. Kennemer is secretary-treasurer and general manager of the Oak Lawn Ice & Fuel Company is a stockholder in the Texas Ice and Cold Storage Company, on which approximately $200,000 has been spent recently in improvements alone.
Mr. Kennemer is a native of Alabama, born at Hollywood, October 18, 1882. His parents, Nathan A. and Julia (McCarroll) Kennemer, belonged to the substantial farming class and gave their son the ad- vantage of the education offered by the schools of Hollywood. In February, 1901. Mr. Kennemer came to Dallas and entered at once into the retail ice business. He began with only one wagon and at the end of twelve years he was using twenty wagons. In 1912 he went into the wholesale ice business in which he remained until February 1, 1920, when he becanie general manager of the Columbia Manufac- turing Company.
On May 25, 1907, Mr. Kennemer was married to Miss Jenny Coyle, daughter of W. J. Coyle, of Dallas. Clarence Elliott, a twelve year old son, is the only child. The Kennemer home is at 3927 Cole Avenue.
Mr. Kennemer is a staunch advocate of the Demo cratic party.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS
OHN F. EMERICH, president and organ- izer of the Emerich Oil Company, Wiehita Falls, directs one of America's recent but most prosperous companies. E. L. Small- wood, of New York City, is vice-president of the corporation and Joseph Shaw, of Wichita Falls, secretary and treasurer. The Emerich Oil Company is capitalized at $1,500,000 and operates in the Northwest Field, Burkburnett, Electra and Young County fields, already has twenty-eight produeing wells, three rotary rigs developing three separate leases at present, and holds 27,000 acres of proven and semi-proven territory. The company has also large acreage in the Tampico field of Old Mexico.
Mr. Emerich was born at Mason City, Ill., on September S. 1883. His parents are Adam Emerich and Ruth Wright Emerich and now live at Burling- ton, Kansas. Ottawa public schools and Ottawa University, Kansas, gave the youth his education and, as a start in his business career, John F. Emerich began railroading. He was train dis- patcher for the Rock Island; later he served as traveling passenger agent for the same road until he resigned and went into the oil business in Okla- homa. He began in block 819, a condemned field, but opened up what is now known as the Emerich Pool, drilled eight wells that average from 1,200 to 2,400 barrels per day, and then sold his interests in the field he had thus brought in to the Kansas & Gulf Co. for $1,250,000. This was the outeome of a three-year development for it was in 1914 that Mr. Emerich started in the business in Oklahoma and it was in 1917 that he sold. He then came to Wichita Falls, where he organized the Emerich Oil Company, which, with all of its big financial back- ing, its thousands of acres of proven territory and its many producing wells, has less than twenty stockholders. Mr. Emerich is also a director in the High Speed Steel Company of New York.
Recently Mr. Emerich purchased a 2,000 acre ranch in California where he expects to spend his summers.
In 1907 at Shawnee, Okla., Mr. Emerich married Miss Bloom Eggerman, of Washington, D. C. They reside at 1611 Monroe Street.
Mr. Emerich is a Mason to the thirty-second de- gree, a Shriner of the Indian Temple, Oklahoma City, a member of the Wichita Golf Club, the Chan- ber of Commerce and a Presbyterian by church af- filiation. Youthful, powerful in executive ability, founder and president of the Emerich Oil Company, one of the largest and strongest in the Lone Star State, Texas is glad to welcome and adopt this man of big business and looks to him as an important factor in her future development.
OBERT L. UNDERWOOD, oil operator and president and general manager of the Underwood Drilling Company, Inc., Morgan. Building, came to Wichita Falls in January of 1919 and immediately engaged in the oil business, taking an active part in development of the various fields of this seetion since that time. On October 1, 1919, he organized the drilling company which bears his name and has been very successful with it. Besides his activity with the drilling company Mr. Underwood is also interested in leases and produc- tion and has acquired some very valuable holdings.
A native Texan. Mr. Underwood was born in . Coryelle County, August 9, 1886. He is a son of
John W. Underwood, pioneer Texan and a well known resident of Coryelle County for many years.
Mr. Underwood received his education in the public and high schools of Central West Texas and early in life engaged in business for himself. He has had an active career in the oil business.
On March 11, 1909, Mr. Underwood was married at Hamlin, Texas, to Miss Maggie J. Hale, a native Texan. They have three children, Clay, Guy Herring and Anita Lee. The family resides at 1620 Twelfth Street, Wichita Falls.
Mr. Underwood is recognized as one of the best posted oil men now operating in the North and West Texas fields and is conceded to be an authority on matters pertaining to drilling. He is enterprising and energetic and an enthusiastic booster for Wichita Falls. Mr. Underwood is a member of the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks.
SID HUDSON, district manager of the Geo. P. Ide and Co., Inc., located 1006 Com- merce Street, has been actively engaged with this company for twenty-five years. He came to Dallas from San Angelo in 1910 to open up a Dallas branch house and accepted the position which he now occupies. The Geo. P. Ide Co., Inc., is one of the largest and best advertised manufae- turers of shirts and collar concerns known. The Dallas branch supplies retail merchants in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Prior to the time Mr. Hudson went into the em- ploy of the Geo. P. Ide & Co., he was traveling the Texas territory for E. S. Jaffray Dry Goods Co. of New York. He then worked for the Geo. P. Ide & Co. for fifteen years before he was given the responsible position he now holds as manager of the Dallas branch.
He was born at Whaleysville, Md., in 1857. At the early age of ten his people came to Texas and located at Caldwell where they remained for many years. His father was Major Hudson, a prominent farmer in Burleson County. Mr. Hudson was edu- cated by private tuition. In 1883 he married Miss Emma York, daughter of James York, a planter and merchant of Alabama. Her people, however, moved to Texas in 1875. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson have one daughter, Lurline. She was married to Mr. J. C. Powell, a prominent and influential rancher of West Texas To them was born one daughter, Gene Cath- erine. Mr. Powell died during the influenza epidemic. Mr. Hudson's home is 3715 Gillon Avenue, Highland Park. The family are members of the Methodist Church.
Any city is indeed fortunate to have such in- fluential men as Mr. Hudson as a resident and busi- ness man. His success is due to his great will power and determination and he should be an in- spiration to young business men.
E. DE BERRY, manager of the Texas Parfay Company, bottlers, 811-13 Exposition Ave- nue, a corporation first organized in 1918, reorganized April 15, 1920 is associated with Dr. J. M. Jones who is president of the com- pany, though not active in the organization. The Company manufactures and bottles parfay and soda waters and has a capacity for from five to six hundred cases per day, and supplies the local trade. They also manufacture syrups, which are sold to the trade all over the state .. Six delivery trucks are
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operated in the city delivery service and a corps of fourteen people are employed.
Mr. DeBerry was born and reared on a farm and for a number of years engaged in agricultural pur- suits in West Texas, but quit the business in 1898, and went into the saloon business at Gains- ville, Texas, where he operated the Anchor Saloon. Later he went into the grocery and liquor business at Pilot Point, Texas, and leaving that line he went on the road as a cigar salesman for the Henry Reiger Cigar Company, covering the entire state of Texas. Quitting the road he came to Dallas in 1903 and again engaged in the saloon business, which he continued until the city went dry. He then engaged in the real estate business and followed that vocation until the organization of this company was effected.
Mr. Deberry is a native of Madison County, Tenn., born in 1867, son of D. L. DeBerry, a farmer, de- "ceased. He attended the schools of his community, acquiring such an education as the public schools of those days provided. He has twice been married, his first wife dying in 1895. His second wife bore him one son, Charles B., 20 years old, and a traveling salesman. He and his father are the owners of the Sun Crush Distributing Co., exclusive distributers for Sun Crush, a genuine orange juice drink, in Dal- las and Fort Worth. This drink is one of the most healthful drinks on the market and may be found at all leading drug stores and drink stands. The of- fice of this company is located at 1811-1813 Expo- sition Avenue, Dallas.
Mr. DeBerry and his son are members of the T. P. A. He has great faith in the future greatness of Dallas and is confident that its growth in the next few years will surpass all of its former strides.
B. SHANNON, wholesale coal dealer with offices 713 Southwestern Life Building, has the distinction of being the oldest coal dealer in Dallas who is still in the business. For nearly thirty years he has given his entire atten- tion to coal distribution during which time he has come to know all the men of prominence in the coal industry in the south and has established an ex- tensive patronage. .
Mr. Shannon went into the wholesale coal business in 1893 and his territory both for selling and for buy- ing has gradually been extended. He now deals in coal that is mined in Illinois, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, selling it throughout North Texas. Mr. Shannon is not one of the coal dealers who has been discouraged by the reduced demand for coal due to the introduction of fuel oil and natural gas, but he feels that depression in the coal industry is only tem- porary as is already being shown. His own business enjoyed a 50 per cent increase in 1919 over 1918 and the increase for 1920 was even greater. He has salesmen on the road constantly and travels him- self much of the time.
Mr. Shannon was born in Houston, August 2, 1872. His father, D. W. Shannon, was a native of New York but came to Texas at an carly day and served through the Civil War in the Confederate army. He was one of the pioneers of Wichita Falls and' be- came prominent there as an attorney and civil en- gineer. He was one of the engineers who laid out the city of Wichita Falls, Texas. His wife was formerly Miss Arbella Abel, a native of Mississippi. In 1875 the family inoved to Dallas and a year later the elder Mr. Shannon's death occurred at Wichita Falls. Until he was eleven years old the younger
Shannon attended the public schools of Dallas but at that early age it became necessary for him to be- gin working. His first employment was cash boy for Sanger Brothers, which place he held for a year. For the next three years he was railroading and for three more years he was employed in a bank. Dur- ing these years of training in the school of life he was an apt student and when he went into the coal business in 1893 he carried with him a valuable store of experience and general knowledge.
On June 8, 1904, Mr. Shannon was married to Miss Cora Walsen, daughter of Fred G. Walsen, one of the pioneer merchants of Colorado and afterwards Treasurer of the state. The two children are Con- stance and M. B., Jr. The Shannon residence is at 1121 Apple street.
Mr. Shannon has witnessed the development of Dallas from a town of 7,000 to its present size, and he has implicit faith that its future development will be as great as the past. He has entered heartily into every forward movement and is a tireless sup- porter of enterprises for civic advancement. From 1915 to 1917 Mr. Shannon served the city as Finance Commissioner. He is a member of the local Cham- ber of Commerce, the Texas Chamber of Commerce, the University Club, the Dallas Country Club, the Auto Club and a director of the American Life In- surance Co., and of the Dallas Railway Co. His long residence in Dallas and his worthy career have been the means of attracting to himself a large group of intimate friends.
ALTER B. SAMUELL, pioneer Texan, in his business career of a little over forty years, has been as active in the wholesale grain, lumber and oil mill business as any man in Texas during the same time. Practically every sec- tion of the state has known his organizing and pro- moting genius in oil mills. He had been, thereby, one of the benefactors of his state, for before the present day efficiency of the Texas oil mill farmers everywhere discarded their cotton seed, many burn- ing tons of them to get them out of the way, which today, because of the products now derived from them, are a valuable part of the farming crop. The cotton oil business of Texas runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the securing of this by-product has led to the utilization of still others. In like manner the present-day immense grain busi- ness was not possible until the founding and estao- lishment of many and large wholesale grain con- cerns; Mr. Samuell was a forerunner in Texas in this respect also, being one of the earliest in this field of commerce. Just as he had been of great use in creating marketing systems for land products and for their utilization, so Mr. Samuell has also been a leader in developing real estate and farm lands; entire sections of territory have been lifted into higher values because of his development.
Mr. Samuell was born in 1856, at Verona, Ala. His father, Wm. Thornton Samuell, a native of Ala- bana, moved to Sherman, Texas, in 1879; his mother was Salina ( Bridges) Samuell, also a native of Ala- bama. The University of Oxford, at Oxford, Miss., gave Mr. Samuell his education while Texas has reaped the benefit of his long business career. Later he moved to Greenville, Texas, where he died July 7, 1901.
In 1885, at Greenville, Texas, Mr. Samuell married Miss Bertha V. Stevens, daughter of E. H. Stevens, who came to Texas from Alabama in 1850. They
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have three children, Walter B., E. S. and Mrs. Zora (Samuell) McNeil. The family reside at 1100 South Akard Street.
Mr. Samuell was a Mason, a Knight of Honor, and a member of the Order of United Workmen. As a pioneer who yesterday laid the foundations of big business, Mr. Samuell will be remembered as a pioneer and developer of Texas.
OHN L. NELSON, 1015 American National Bank Building, independent oil operator, drilling contractor and manager of the Uni- versal Drilling and Development Company, is one of the best known as well as among the most successful of the scores of independent oil men who have operated in the fields of Wichita County. He has been very active in the Northwest Extension of the Burkburnett field, K. M. A. and in the fields of Union County, Arkansas and at Mexia. He has drilled a total of thirty-three oil wells of which thirty-one were successful producers. This is a record believed to be unsurpassed in the history of the development of the Mid-Continent oil fields. Besides making a splendid success of his company and paying to its stockholders more than a million and a half dollars in dividends, Mr. Nelson has ac- quired some splendid holdings, including three hun- dred barrels settled daily production which he owns individually.
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