When football fans hear “Battle of the Brazos,” they think of an old rivalry between Baylor and Texas A&M (formerly The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas), two schools situated on the Brazos River. Before the days of the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conferences, there was the Southwest Conference (SWC), where Baylor and Texas A&M vied for the title of SWC champions for decades until the conference was disbanded in 1996. But there were a few years when the schools did not compete, and it was because of a tragedy that has been swathed in myth and bias. A young A&M cadet lost his life as a result of a heated brawl between the two sides during halftime of the game on October 30, 1926.

Baylor and A&M had developed quite the rivalry in the years since their first face-off in 1899. It was the big public college versus the small private college, with the added competition for Baylor women’s hearts, as A&M was still an all-male institution. The cadets often courted the Baylor gals, invoking the ire of the Baylor men ready to come to their defense. The football field became the perfect setting to release this frustration and to try to come out on top for all the girls, alumni, and other fans to see. To add to the stakes, during the 1920s the Baylor-A&M game was often the biggest of the season, being played in the famous ten-thousand-seat Cotton Palace stadium (pinned on map below) and often also serving as Baylor’s homecoming game. A&M would bring its entire cadet corps and parade through the streets of Waco as well. The festivities surrounding the game were highly anticipated, and it was always a full house.

With such revelry comes emotion and team spirit, and these can sometimes get out of hand. In fact, trouble had been brewing at this football showdown in the years leading up to the fateful game in 1926. In 1922, a riot broke out after the game and was broken up by firehoses. In 1924, another riot erupted after the Aggies lost, and both male and female students were allegedly assaulted until the Waco police dispelled the violence. When the 1926 game rolled around, Baylor had law enforcement ready for any postgame shenanigans, but to everyone’s surprise, the violence came long before the game ended.

It all started with what was thought to be some low-stakes mockery. Normally, the A&M cadets would perform at halftime and show off their military calisthenics. This year, the entire corps did not come to the game, so with only four hundred cadets in attendance, they decided not to perform. But Baylor took it upon themselves to make sure the crowd still got a cadet calisthenics show. Dressed as fake cadets, some Baylor men took to the field and made fun of the military routine of their rivals. This caused blood to boil among the Aggie attendees. Then, to make matters worse, a Ford vehicle full of Baylor women came out onto the field touting signs with previous Baylor football scores on them. This particularly irked the Aggies because of a previous game between Baylor and A&M when a Ford car had nearly collided with some Aggie students during the halftime show. Just the sight of a car was too much for a few to handle.

Two cadets, later identified as W. L. Lee and G. L. Hart, hopped onto the field and sprinted toward the moving vehicle. Lee dove into the car window and grabbed the steering wheel, jostling the car and causing one of the women to fall off the back. The Baylor men then took to the field to protect their women, and mayhem ensued. The young men swung not only fists, but also clubs and parts of the wooden chairs from the stands. It was in this chaos that cadet Charles Milo Sessums was struck by a chair on the left side of his head near midfield, falling flat to the ground. Cadet William Moers Jr. carried him to the first aid station while the band quelled the riot by playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Lead Aggie yell leader J.D. Langford apologized to the crowd and made his men swear to stay in their seats thirty minutes after the game ended to avoid further fracas. Things seemed to have settled, and the game continued to its completion, with Baylor winning 20-9.

But soon no one remembered the score. After being checked out at the first aid station, Charles Sessums was taken to Providence Sanitarium. The doctors detected a skull fracture, but medicine had little to offer Charles. His doctors assumed that with rest he would make a full recovery, but sadly he passed away at nine o’clock the next morning due to a blood clot that formed because of the fracture. His parents traveled from Dallas to collect their son’s body, and a funeral was held in their home on November 2, 1926.

Despite an investigation by Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, the man who struck the fatal blow was never found. Though detective Ila Floyd Benedict narrowed it down to a handful of suspects, he never called for an arrest. In fact, some of the interviews Benedict conducted led him to suspect a cover-up by the town mayor, Dr. H. F. Connally. Relations between the two schools soured in the wake of these events, especially after the Baylor and A&M presidents released a joint statement sharing the blame for the incident. Both student bodies vehemently protested, blamed the other, and called for a cessation of athletic competition between the two schools. Baylor and A&M would not compete in any capacity for five years after this tragic incident.

Baylor and A&M played for the last time in 2011, and by that time most people did not even know about the riot that killed Charles Sessums. But it remains an important event in the history of the university and the town of Waco. Author T. G. Webb captured the full story and outlined the suspects in his book: Battle of the Brazos: A Texas Football Rivalry, a Riot, and a Murder.

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For nearly half a century, cotton reigned as king of Waco's economy, establishing the once small frontier town as a thriving urban center known throughout the country.

The area later named Waco held a long history of agricultural pursuits tracing back to the Waco Indians' farming of crops such as melons, pumpkins, lima beans, and corn. Cotton farming and plantation culture arrived in Waco along with the first white settlers of McLennan County. Initially hesitant to plant crops in the black soil found in Central Texas, these settlers soon found the alluvial soil of the Brazos Valley and blackland prairie ideal for growing cotton.

Prior to the Civil War, cotton production in McLennan County remained relatively small. Without a means to transport the product with ease throughout the country, there was little reason to produce large amounts of cotton. Additionally, although farmers sought to recreate southern plantation life in Waco, legal restrictions placed on the number of slaves a landlord could bring into Texas prevented large-scale plantations from developing.

Cotton production slowed with the dawn of the Civil War as most Wacoans, supporting secession, left to fight. The price of cotton fell and shipments to Europe stopped completely when the Union blocked established trade routes out of the South. Yet this setback ultimately turned into Waco's first step toward industrialization when, during his search to secure passage for the crop, John Baylis Earle acquired equipment for a cotton mill in England, disassembled it, and smuggled it into Waco via Mexico. The new mill freed up considerable time for women who had previously spent hours sewing and spinning cotton.

The defeat of the South in 1865 and subsequent emancipation of slaves completely restructured plantation life. Although some freedmen left Waco, many remained in the area in altered relationships with their former owners. The large number of people desiring to farm a limited amount of land led to a new hierarchy. Unable to pay all of their former slaves a fair wage, landowners rented pieces of land to tenants and sharecroppers in exchange for a portion of the crop and profit at the end of the growing season.

The cotton industry industrialized and grew considerably in Waco during this period immediately following the Civil War. The construction of the Waco Suspension Bridge and arrival of the Waco Tap Railroad in 1870 increased the number of people and goods entering and departing the city. Waco's cotton market boomed, and by 1885, the city became known as the largest inland cotton market in Texas. When a second railroad connection arrived, it was named the Cotton Belt Route in honor of the large market to which it primarily catered.

Life in Waco came to revolve around the crop which had earned the town the name of King Cotton. Bankers loaned money against cotton crops, and the city economy boomed along with farmers' prosperity. Brokers from other states and nations opened offices in the city. Each fall, farmers from the surrounding counties arrived in the town square at daybreak to display bales for classification and sale. In 1894, the city instituted the grand annual festival named the Cotton Palace Exposition in order to honor and celebrate the central role of the crop in the local economy.

By the turn of the twentieth century, however, the cotton industry reached its peak and was already beginning a steady decline, largely due to the diversification of agriculture as well as the depletion of soil nutrients. Although no longer the enormous market force it once represented, cotton continued to play an important role in Waco's economy throughout the twentieth century, with small numbers of farmers growing cotton and local merchants continuing to offer rewards for the first bale of cotton each season. Today, small cotton farms can be seen in the countryside surrounding the city, and the legacy of the crop which once made Waco a center of the South is visible in landmarks around town such as Cottonland Castle, the silos of the old cotton oil mill, and the site of the Texas Cotton Palace.

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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. During his time in Waco, Blomeyer also became one of the early pioneers in the telephone industry in Central Texas.

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 a manager and rate collector. 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.

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.

With his keen interest in the telephone industry and engineering, Blomeyer was also a prolific writer, contributing articles to several publications including: The Magazine of Business; Telephony: The American Telephone Journal; Business: A Magazine for Office, Store and Factory; Public Utilities Fortnightly; American Telephone Journal; and Popular Mechanics. He was also known throughout the telephone industry as the author of a series of booklets titled: Letters to Managers. By 1934, copies of the ten-book series offering advice to managers in all fields of business numbered over three million in circulation.

But Blomeyer wasn’t just a career man—he was a photographer as well, capturing many images of Waco. He recorded many scenes of the 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.

In 1920, Waco lost one of its pioneering men in the telecommunications industry. When Blomeyer went to work for the Automatic Electric Company, based in Chicago, he and his wife left their residence at 930 North Seventeenth Street (as indicated on the Waco History map). 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.

A year later, to recognize his life's work in the telephone industry, E. C. Blomeyer was inducted into the Independent Telephone Hall of Fame. Additionally, the widow of Edward Charles Blomeyer, Amma, donated funds to Palm Beach Atlantic College enabling the establishment of the E. C. Blomeyer Library, dedicated on March 9, 1969. The library is now called the Warren Library as a series of donations has enabled Palm Beach Atlantic University to expand since its beginning in 1968. E. C. Blomeyer's legacy carries on as a benefactor of this university, in his writings, photographic record, and contributions to the telephone industry, including that of Central Texas.

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Helen Marie Taylor is a native Wacoan who has dedicated her life to preserving history through her efforts in museums, organizations, and foundations. She worked on a council for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and served as president for both the James Monroe Memorial Foundation and the James Madison Museum. In an attempt to preserve the local history of her hometown, Taylor focused her efforts on opening a local history museum in Waco, Texas: The Helen Marie Taylor Museum of Waco History, also referred to as the Taylor Museum.

Many citizens of Waco showed interest in the idea of a local history museum centering on the need to connect to one’s past through the story of the community. Many believed this museum would help them better understand where they came from and how their community developed into what it is today. Helen Marie Taylor bought the old Barron Springs Elementary School in the 1980s and began restoring it in order to create her museum. Starting in 1991, she held a few public gatherings in the museum, and it officially opened in 1993.

The Taylor Museum focused on many different aspects of Waco history. For instance, one of the exhibits concerned the Waco Indians. The museum staff thought it was very important to give homage to the first people who lived in the Waco area, especially considering that the Taylor Museum is located on the land that held the homes of many of these Indians. This exhibit included artifacts, images of what the area might have looked like at the time, and even sounds of what it might have sounded like at the time.

Two exhibits portraying well-known aspects of Waco history reside on the second floor of this building. One room presents a detailed to-scale model of the Branch Davidian compound. Another portrays the Cotton Palace, which served as the center of Waco for several years, as cotton was the staple of Waco’s economy following the Civil War. The size of this exhibit, compared to the others in the Taylor Museum, reveals the Cotton Palace's importance in Waco history.

Perhaps the most well-known display in the Taylor Museum is the “We the People…” exhibit, which focuses on American history in the colonial period. Helen Marie Taylor had a love for early American history and used the museum to present this history to Waco through artifacts such as George Washington’s silk vest, a musket from the Revolutionary War, and a chair from the Constitutional Convention.

Though the museum shows many other aspects of Waco’s history than those described here, it passes over some important aspects such as the Chisholm Trail, the Waco Tornado, and the educational history of Waco. The Taylor Museum closed just five years after its opening due to problems with the board of directors and a lack of variation in exhibits, causing public disinterest.

However, the museum has not sat empty since its closure. Various organizations, including the Historic Waco Foundation, recently met with Helen Marie Taylor to discuss reopening the museum. These groups recognize the important role the Taylor Museum played in connecting individual histories through the community’s past. The discussions reflect the organizations’ desire to reopen the museum and diversify the exhibits in order to portray a true sense of the Waco community. Currently, groups of ten or more people are allowed to take self-guided tours of the museums and school groups may visit on field trips.

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