The roots of Bellmead grew out of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company (M-K-T). In June of 1910, M-K-T purchased 90 percent of the Texas Central Railway, a line of tracks running 268 miles from Waco to Rotan. Because of Waco’s central location along the line, M-K-T built a massive locomotive complex called a roundhouse in a rural area near the city. The region received its name in 1911 when M-K-T President Charles Schaff, on an inspection tour of the new facility, noted to a Katy railroad attorney that the area around the roundhouse reminded him of the farm where he grew up in Belle Meade, Tennessee. The area around the roundhouse soon thereafter adopted the name Bellmead.
In 1913, surveyors laid out “Bellmead Court” in lots and blocks. The land did not catch the interest of many buyers since it was prone to frequent flooding. Eventually, the company divided the Ashleman Farm—which lay adjacent to the M-K-T property—into lots that sold for thirty-five dollars each to families working for the railroad and to those wishing to provide goods and services to those families. Over time, more people moved to the area and businesses followed.
The 1928-29 Polk City Directory was the first to list Bellmead streets and businesses, showing a merchant’s store, two-story rooming house, garage, a barber shop, gas station, a grocery store, and the Bellmead Baptist Church. The state highway department brought a vital transportation link to the area in 1932 through the construction of State Highway 84. In 1939, residents voted to incorporate as a city, but the movement failed because the area lacked independent sewage, water, and fire services.
During the Great Depression, men laid off from the M-K-T railroad found work with the Works Progress Administration. They built water and sewer lines to serve the area, freeing it from its reliance upon Waco for such services. Around that same time, a volunteer fire department was established and the fire station became a center of civic activity.
Before World War II, Bellmead’s economy depended heavily upon the M-K-T railroad shops. However, the war brought about the need for new and different services and industries, reviving Bellmead’s economy. General Tire & Rubber Company arrived to produce military truck tires, Waco Army Airfield (later called James Connally Air Force Base) was established, and the M-K-T Railway received a boost as one of the chief transporters of crude oil from Texas to the rest of the nation. Activity centered upon the war effort resulted in a rapid increase in the population. In the early 1940s the population was approximately 25, but by 1949 it had increased to 800.
In 1951, Bellmead citizen Chuck Lovelace learned from a Waco city councilman that the city planned to annex the Bellmead area in 1952. After discussing the issue with other citizens, Lovelace convinced the county commissioners to hold an incorporation election, allowing the citizens of the area to determine whether they wanted to be a separate city. The December 19, 1952, election was very close, but ultimately Bellmead voted to approve incorporation. A group of local residents drafted the initial charter and the first city council meeting was held on November 12, 1953.
Bellmead continued to grow rapidly toward the twenty-first century. Although Connally Air Force Base closed in 1965, Texas A&M purchased the site and established James Connally Technical Institute, now known as Texas State Technical College. Today, the city is home to nearly ten thousand residents and remains an integral part of McLennan County.
]]>La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant & Cantina serves as a landmark of the success of the Castillo family—one of the oldest Central Texas restaurant families still in business today.
Family patriarch Antonio P. Castillo Sr. started the Castillo restaurant legacy when he purchased the Old Texas Café in downtown Waco in 1920. After recognizing the local demand for Mexican food, Castillo closed the Texas Café in 1926 and opened the Aztec Café at 818 Austin Avenue. The Aztec introduced authentic Tex-Mex cuisine to the area, quickly becoming a popular place to dine. Baylor students especially enjoyed the restaurant due to the dance hall in the back of the restaurant nicknamed The Patio.
The business developed into a family venture. Castillo’s seven children grew up at the same time the Aztec Café served downtown Wacoans. Antonio and his wife, Josephine, taught them how to make pralines—a Mexican candy still served at Castillo restaurants today—the old-fashioned way. Each of the children became involved in the family restaurant business at one time or another.
In 1948, the Castillos opened El Patio, a restaurant located on Sixteenth Street. Shortly after its opening, an Italian airman serving at Waco’s James Connally Air Force Base introduced Antonio and his sons to the art of making pizza. He also taught them the proper technique for making lasagna, spaghetti, and manicotti—dishes popular among the airmen from the Northeast who populated the air force base. Capitalizing on the new and popular Italian cuisine options while continuing to serve Tex-Mex food, the Castillos renamed the restaurant The Italian Village in 1952—a name that remained until its closing in 1986.
One of Castillo’s children, Sam Castillo Sr., left the Italian Village in 1963 to follow in his father’s footsteps and open his own restaurant, on the corner of Eighteenth Street and Washington Avenue. La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant & Cantina is one of the Castillo restaurants which remains in operation today, although it relocated to Franklin Avenue at Valley Mills Drive in 1972. The restaurant quickly became a local favorite, known for its unique menu combining traditional family recipes with new and fresh takes on dishes.
In the mid-twentieth century, Castillo family members opened various Tex-Mex restaurants throughout the city, including two additional La Fiesta locations which operated until the early twenty-first century, and Casa de Castillo on Sanger Avenue.
The vision of four generations of the Castillo family continues today with La Fiesta’s commitment to quality Tex-Mex cuisine from decades-old family recipes. The restaurant strives to preserve the vision of Antonio Castillo’s original restaurant by serving up fresh ingredients, original family recipes, and a lively atmosphere.
]]>Floyd Casey Stadium housed the Baylor Football Program from 1950 until the opening of McLane Stadium in the fall of 2014. In 1936, Baylor Football’s home turf was Municipal Stadium, located at Fifteenth Street and Dutton Avenue. With a maximum seating of twenty thousand, it didn’t take long for the Baylor Football Program to outgrow this facility.
In the late 1940s, a 500-member-strong Baylor Stadium Corporation formed to provide a new home for the Bears, and Baylor President W. R. White banded together with Waco civic leaders in order to get the job done. The corporation initially projected preliminary construction costs at $1.5 million. The city agreed to put $500,000 toward the project, and the university estimated that $1 million could be raised from non-Waco resources such as Baylor alumni, football fans, and “outstanding Baptists [sic] laymen.”
In order to raise the money, the Baylor Stadium Corporation issued thirty-year stadium bonds at 3 percent interest. Bonds of $100 or more could be applied as a tuition credit and prospective students received “entrance priority.” The corporation also provided supporters with the option of purchasing seats, which guaranteed a seat for all home games for twenty years following the construction of the stadium, with prices varying according to stadium seat locations.
Fundraisers traveled across Texas, with exhortations from President White that “Baylor is not asking for a gift. The bonds are sound investments from a financial standpoint. The [seating] options are investments in future entertainment for sports lovers.” The rhetoric worked. By January of 1950, $1,001,836.70 worth of bonds and stadium seat options were sold.
While fundraisers were out stumping, Baylor searched for the perfect location for the stadium. Although the university wanted to remain in the same area as Municipal Stadium on the grounds of the former Texas Cotton Palace, parking posed an issue and a geological fault on the land raised construction concerns. On to Plan B. A February 1949 news release announced the purchase of a 100-acre plot in Waco’s west suburbs for the new Baylor Stadium.
The university held the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Baylor Stadium on May 28, 1949, and construction began in November of the same year. Even though the stadium wasn’t quite finished, the Bears played their first game at Baylor Stadium on September 30, 1950, against the University of Houston.
At the time of that first game, the stadium sat forty-nine thousand people and was hailed as a “Fittin’ home for the Fightin’ Baylor Bears.” Opening ceremonies included a flyover by planes from nearby Connally Air Force Base, while the University of Houston band played the national anthem and Baylor Air Force ROTC color guard raised the colors. Baylor even beat the University of Houston 34-7 on the long-awaited opening day.
Legendary sportswriter Dave Campbell reported in a 1957 Waco Tribune-Herald article that “the show-piece stadium” where “every seat is good” cost $1,668,790.27. In the years following the first game, the stadium was renovated several times in order to account for increased attendance and ticket sales. One of the largest projects occurred in the late 1980s when Carl B. Casey donated $5 million toward an $8 million renovation plan. At the 1988 homecoming game, the stadium was renamed to honor his father, Floyd Casey.
Although primarily constructed to serve the football team, Floyd Casey Stadium also hosted other events for both Baylor and the Waco community. For many years, the university held graduation ceremonies in the stadium and once even hosted an ice skating fundraiser after installing several large tanks of water on the field. Wacoans often watched area high schools play on the collegiate field, and in the aftermath of the Waco tornado, the stadium housed servicemen from Fort Hood assisting in the cleanup and rescue efforts.
After serving both Baylor and the Waco community for over sixty years, Floyd Casey Stadium held a record-setting crowd of 51,728 at the stadium’s final game, a victory over the University of Texas on December 7, 2013.
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]]>The first African American mayor of a major city in Texas, Oscar DuCongé rose to local prominence through his civil service and selfless dedication to improving life for all Wacoans.
Born in Pass Christian, Mississippi, on April 19, 1909, Oscar DuCongé spent the majority of his childhood in New Orleans. The ninth of fourteen children, DuCongé went to work at an early age, sweeping floors and cleaning utensils in the barbershop where his father worked. His mother taught music and gave sewing lessons in their home. DuCongé later said his family’s budget was operated as a “community chest,” with the girls working at home, the boys getting odd jobs to pour into the pot, and his mother disbursing the funds as needed. The family’s thrifty ways enabled DuCongé and nine of his siblings to receive college educations.
DuCongé earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Xavier University in New Orleans in 1931. He married his childhood sweetheart, Mary, who was better known by her nickname Kitty, in 1937. Just a few years later in 1942, he was drafted into the US Army. After completing his basic training in Alabama, DuCongé was assigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, were he worked in the finance department. When his regiment was transferred to Italy, he volunteered for combat duty. Assigned to an infantry unit, he came under fire in the Italian Campaign before he left the service in September of 1945.
Following his service overseas, DuCongé returned to school to get a master’s degree in social work in 1946 from Atlanta University, and completed other postgraduate work at Southern University in Baton Rouge, University of Pittsburgh, and Xavier University while Mary completed her own studies.
When Oscar received a job offer from the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Waco in 1948, the DuCongés picked up their lives and moved to 1209 Preston Street (as indicated on the Waco History map), quickly becoming involved in civic life in the city. DuCongé left his job at the VA in the 1950s in order to co-own and operate the Doris Miller Memorial Park. He served as the secretary-treasurer of the park from 1955 until 1972. In June of 1966, he was named director of Neighborhood Centers for the Economic Opportunities Advancement Corporation (EOAC) in Waco. Although the position did not pay much, it presented an opportunity for DuCongé to become involved in social work again and to tackle the issue of widespread poverty. Six years later, his job title was changed to director of community programming.
When DuCongé ran but failed to obtain a seat on the school board in 1970, constituents drafted him to run for city council in 1972. Defeating his white opponent, high school administrator M. D. Ritcherson, DuCongé earned the affection of his ward and the respect of his council colleagues. He ran unopposed in 1974 to retain the seat.
DuConge’s election built upon decades-old efforts to reform voting practices in Waco. When the city saw its first black candidate for city council in 1950, Waco’s white decision-makesr facilitated a shift from a single-member district system to all at-large seats, in which each seat was voted on by the entire city. Given that Waco was majority-white, this shift all but assured the exclusion of black candidates from local political office. In 1972, the League of Women Voters started a committee that challenged the system two years later by bringing suit against the city of Waco. Austin lawyer David Richards — husband of future Gov. Ann Richards — took on the case. The petitioners were William Haliburton, Wilbert Austin, Lela Briscoe, Roland Arriola, Pete Arvizu, Frances Ortega, Kathy Patteson, Myrtle McKinney and Jane Derrick. On April 19, 1976, an Austin judge ruled in favor of the Wacoans and ordered the city to change to a single-member district system of electing the council. While the fight for social and systemic equality remained elusive for many Wacoans of color, this ruling ushered in a period in which elected officials began to more accurately represent their constituencies.
The respect DuCongé garnered on the council led to his election as the city’s mayor. As reported by the Dallas Morning News on April 13, 1974: “Black and Catholic, DuCongé was selected this week by his white fellow councilmen to serve as mayor of this predominantly Baptist city which in the past has been white ruled.”
DuCongé saw the vote of his colleagues as indicative of societal changes sweeping the nation in that late civil rights era and sought to serve as the mayor of the whole city rather than of one faction. He dedicated his time as mayor to improving the lives of as many people as possible. After leaving the council in 1975, DuCongé remained active in civic affairs and charity in Greater Waco, promoting racial harmony and fighting to eradicate poverty. He passed away on July 26, 1978.
A dedicated civil servant, Oscar DuCongé set a precedent for overcoming racial divisions and endeavoring to make the community a better place for all citizens.
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]]>As one of the first churches built west of Eighth Street, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church has been a center of spiritual growth and community outreach for over one hundred years.
Having decided that the congregation at Waco’s Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now First United Methodist Church) had grown too large, its members petitioned the denominational conference for a church plant. Recognizing the aforementioned need, the quarterly conference approved the establishment of Austin Avenue Methodist Church on December 31, 1900. Dr. John R. Nelson, the incumbent pastor at Fifth Street, took the lead in organizing the new church.
To house the new church, the building committee purchased three lots on the southwest corner of Twelfth Street and Austin Avenue and commissioned architect Charles Bowman to build the sanctuary for $25,000. The main auditorium seated six hundred. The church building also included a special auditorium for Sunday school classes, a pastor’s study, a choir room, and a ladies’ parlor complete with a dining room and kitchen. The first service in the new sanctuary took place on April 13, 1902, despite the fact the stained glass windows had not yet arrived.
As the church grew alongside prosperous downtown Waco in the early twentieth century, church leaders decided a larger property was needed. After much fundraising, church leaders purchased two pieces of land at Thirteenth Street and Austin Avenue and hired architect R. H. Hunt to construct a two-story structure inspired by gothic architecture at a cost of $350,000. The new sanctuary was completed in 1925.
On Saturday, November 13, 1954, tragedy struck Austin Avenue Methodist Church in the form of a terrible fire. Though firemen fought to save the sanctuary, the blaze consumed the worship space and its roof collapsed. The adjacent educational building was spared from the flames but suffered extensive water damage. Shaken but undeterred by the disaster, the congregation assembled the next day at the Twenty-Fifth Street Theater to worship and hear a sermon titled “Fortunate People” by incumbent Pastor Dr. G. Alfred Brown.
Austin Avenue Methodist Church’s sanctuary and educational building reopened to congregants on March 11, 1956. The rebuilt worship space featured aesthetic improvements such as walnut paneling, wall-to-wall carpeting, and forty-eight beautiful stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of Christ and important Christian symbols. The new three-story educational building contained ten large department rooms, nine restrooms, and three kitchenettes. These facilities continue to be central to congregational life well into the twenty-first century, although renovations occurred in the 1980s to accommodate the growing body of worshippers. In 1968, Austin Avenue Methodist Church became formally known as Austin Avenue United Methodist Church. The name change marked the merger of the Methodist denomination with the Evangelical United Brethren.
Over its long history, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church has served the greater community of Waco with a variety of outreach programs. During the Great Depression, the church established a soup kitchen to help feed local individuals and families hardest hit by the economic downturn. From 1942 to 1945, Austin Avenue contributed to the World War II home front by hosting Sunday evening programs and dinners for visiting servicemen. Congregation member Maybelle Rice even took on the role of wedding planner, happily organizing many a marriage ceremony held within the church for active-duty soldiers and their sweethearts. Austin Avenue’s commitment to American servicemen continued during the Korean War (1951-1953) as the church hosted parties each Friday night for the homesick cadets stationed at James Connally Air Force Base. In the aftermath of the 1953 F-5 tornado that devastated Waco’s downtown, Austin Avenue Methodist Church served as one of the main distribution centers for relief donations. Seeking to make better use of its resources in the mid-1970s, the church opened a kindergarten in its education building and used its kitchen to participate in the Meals on Wheels program. Two years later, a preschool was added to the kindergarten and the administrative board approved the adoption of Montessori-style instruction for those childcare facilities. Austin Avenue Montessori School remained at the location until 1993. To further meet the childcare needs of the community, the church started a Parents’ Day Out program in January of 1980.
In 1990, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church received an official Texas Historical Commission Marker.
As one of the first houses of worship established past Eighth Street, Austin Avenue United Methodist Church--which "reunited" with First Methodist in July 2019--continues to serve downtown Waco well into the twenty-first century.
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]]>In 1948, brothers-in-law Jack Schaevitz and Lou Stein opened a small mobile food cart at James Connally Air Force Base. The two became so successful selling burgers and frozen custard to military men that they opened a small restaurant on the Waco traffic circle the following summer. The two brothers fought fiercely over choosing a name for their new business but eventually settled upon “Health Camp,” the words stamped on the eggs that Jack's dad used to sell at his dairy in Youngstown, Ohio.
Initially, the restaurant on the circle consisted of just a small kitchen with a walk-up window from which customers could place their orders. Before business shifted further out into the suburbs, restaurants on the circle such as Health Camp were regular afternoon gathering places for Wacoans. Additionally, the restaurant’s location on the traffic circle ensured that it became a stopping point for travelers between Dallas and Austin.
Schaevitz took pride in associating his business with the local community. He attended the Baylor Homecoming Parade each year until his retirement in 1989, and subsequently lined the walls of his restaurant with pictures he took at the celebration. Although the construction of IH-35 in the early 1960s decreased the number of travellers passing through the Waco traffic circle and eating at the restaurant, Schaevitz found that business continued to thrive due to the patronage of Baylor students.
After working seven days a week for forty years, Jack Schaevitz retired at the age of 78 in 1989. He sold Health Camp to well-known restaurateur David Tinsley and his manager, Sammy Citrano. Tinsley also purchased the neighboring Elite Café (now Magnolia Table).
Little has changed at Health Camp since its opening in the years following World War II. The restaurant continues to serve burgers, custard, and homemade onion rings on the restaurant’s original stainless steel countertops, and many still order their burgers at the walk-up window. A jukebox stands in the corner of the dining room, and photographs and newspapers displaying local history line the walls. Today, customers continue to dine at Health Camp in order to revisit old memories, enjoy the local community, and participate in a small part of Waco’s history.
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