The Hammond Laundry Cleaning Machinery and Supply Company of Waco, Texas, began in East Waco on Elm Street in 1911 when Texas native William Hammond decided to try his hand at the laundry business. By midcentury, the Waco company boasted operations and sales throughout the world.
Born in Hearne, Texas, on December 5, 1881, William Hammond moved to Waco in 1911. Almost immediately, he joined with Albert Vawter to form the Hammond-Vawter Tailoring company, with stores in Waco, Taylor, Bryan, and Hillsboro. Hammond’s work in the men’s clothing business sparked his interest in dry-cleaning equipment, which he soon began selling as well. Hammond was not content to simply sell cleaning equipment, however. Thanks to self-educated engineer Fred Winslow, who came on board at Hammond’s company in 1923, the company eventually produced a machine of its own, dubbed “the Hammond.” Throughout the 1920s, Hammond utilized his charisma and skill to singlehandedly establish and maintain markets in Central Texas and neighboring states.
While the local business grew in scale and profits during its first two decades, World War II would signal a time of rapid financial growth and geographic expansion for Hammond Laundry. This growth was, in large part, due to the work of employees who showed remarkable acumen in business, engineering, and sales. In 1942, Roger N. Conger (husband of Hammond’s daughter, Lucy Rose) joined the company at a time when its factory produced $100,000 of equipment annually and had recently relocated from Elm Avenue to 413 Webster Avenue. Conger assisted with business aspects such as marketing, contracts, purchasing, sales, and management. During World War II, when the US relied solely on domestic manufacturers for production of defense goods, the company helped in the war effort by making equipment for the US Navy, such as clothes dryers suitable for use in US Naval vessels. Roger Conger later recalled, “We [Hammond] supplied every drying tumbler that the US Navy purchased during World War II.” This would total nearly three thousand machines. The Hammond facility also manufactured small aircraft components during wartime. Through the 1950s, the Waco firm was still under contract with the US Navy to supply shipboard clothes dryers and also expanded to a new location at Second Street and Mary Avenue.
In the postwar years, non-defense production resumed on a large scale, too. Through the combined efforts of the staff at Hammond, the company expanded to fill demand for their machines from around the world. In 1958, Hammond’s California distributor, Romaine Fielding, established the “first quick-service laundry in the Soviet Union,” when it supplied units to “housing projects in Moscow.” This international success prompted Business Week Magazine to feature a story titled “Chasing Soviet Washday Blues.” Indeed, Waco-made products being sold in Russia in the 1950s was extraordinary for the time. In addition to Russia, other markets included Indonesia, Turkey, and Western Europe. In 1964, Danish representatives even came to the Waco facility to study manufacturing processes at the Hammond plant, then located at 220 South 2nd Street.
In 1961, Hammond sold ownership of the company for approximately one million dollars. The company merged with a Philadelphia firm headed by H. J. Mitchell. It still bore the well-established Hammond name and operated in Waco under the name Hammond Industries, Inc. The company’s president, Roger N. Conger, still headed the firm and became its chairman. The laundry units continued to be fully constructed in Waco, the company providing jobs for sheet-metal workers, welders, electricians, assemblymen, and skilled machinists. In August of 1973, the Waco company was sold to Economics Laboratories of Texas, Inc. (now Ecolab), although Hammond equipment manufacturing operations continued. The company’s founder, William S. Hammond, passed away in Waco on November 5, 1977, at the age of ninety-five. At the time of his passing, Hammond had seen his company grow from five workers to over two hundred and also evolve to play a rare role in local, national, and global history.
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]]>Among the names of the many individuals who served valiantly during World War II, Waco’s own Doris Miller was a hero of national and international acclaim. Although many noted the valor he displayed during the war, some argue he still has not received the honors due him.
Born as the third of four sons to Connery and Henrietta Miller on October 12, 1919, Doris, named for the midwife present at his birth, grew up on a small sharecrop farm just outside of Waco in Speegleville, Texas. Years later, Henrietta Miller admitted that she had hoped for a baby girl, and her wishful thinking led to the feminine name, despite her husband’s protests.
Along with his siblings, Doris worked to support the family farm from an early age. In his youth, he became an excellent marksman as he hunted for small game with his brothers. Doris also had a successful school career at A. J. Moore High School. His tall stature gained the attention of the football coach at the school who recruited Doris as a fullback on the team.
However, as Doris became older, and as war loomed on the horizon, he longed to join the armed forces much to the chagrin of his parents. After several attempts to join different sectors of the military, Doris Miller enlisted in the US Navy in Dallas, Texas, on September 16, 1939. Unfortunately, at the time of his enlistment, discrimination limited the areas of service for African Americans in the military. After training, his assignment was as a mess attendant, third class. It was from this station that Miller answered the call in extraordinary circumstances.
Assigned to the USS West Virginia anchored at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, Doris was collecting laundry in the hull of the ship when the attack began, according to some reports. As the air raid sirens started, Doris Miller burst into action. When he ran to the deck of the ship, he saw his captain sprawled, fatally wounded, on the ground. Miller pulled the wounded captain to safety before racing back to an unmanned antiaircraft gun in the midst of low-flying planes and a rain of bullets. Despite discriminatory policies that forbade Miller or other sailors of color to man heavy artillery, Miller seized control of a .50 caliber machine gun to fire at attacking Japanese planes. He committed his efforts to the defense of the West Virginia until superiors ordered all to abandon ship. Conflicting accounts exist of Miller’s actions that day, but the most widely circulated reports won him quick and international attention.
After the attack, the military awarded Miller with an unprecedented honor. He became the first African American recipient of the Navy Cross, the highest decoration the navy can offer besides the Congressional Medal of Honor. The navy leveraged Miller’s new status by returning him to the home front for a short time to act as a recruiter. In 1943, Miller received a promotion to petty officer, ship’s cook third class, and was assigned to the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay. That November, in the Battle of Makin Island, a Japanese torpedo struck the Liscome Bay and the ship sunk within minutes. Miller did not survive the attack.
While awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, Doris Miller never received the Congressional Medal of Honor, which many believe he deserved. Those who fight for his legacy still lobby for its award.
Though his life was cut short due to the call of active duty, Doris Miller lives on in public memory. Throughout the nation, streets, schools, and parks bear his name. In Waco, his hometown, stands the Doris D. Miller Park and the Doris Miller Family YMCA, active reminders of one African American man’s willingness to serve his country despite its discriminatory practices. Cultural Arts of Waco is currently raising money for a Doris Miller Memorial to be located on the east bank of the Brazos River.
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]]>For more than 40 years, the seeds planted in Washington, D.C., by McLennan County native Bob Poage reaped rewards in Central Texas.
As U.S. representative from Texas' 11th Congressional District — a post he held from Jan. 3, 1937, until his retirement on Dec. 31, 1978 — William Robert "Bob" Poage served during a political era of great influence for congressmen of the Deep South, both on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic Party.
Born in Waco on Dec. 28, 1899 — he liked to say he lived "three full days in the 19th century" — Poage and his family moved to a cattle ranch in Throckmorton while he was a toddler. The family returned to Waco in 1913, and he graduated from Waco High School in 1918.
In World War I, he joined the U.S. Navy, serving as an apprentice seaman. After a brief tour of duty, he attended Baylor University, graduating in 1921. He labored as a farm hand from 1920 to 1922, and taught geology at Baylor from 1922 to 1924 while working on his law degree. Poage was admitted to the bar in 1924, and practiced law in Waco while teaching at the law school until 1928.
His first foray into politics resulted in his election to the Texas House of Representatives in 1924. He served four years. He returned to Austin as a state senator from 1931 to 1937.
As a U.S. Representative, the young New Dealer campaigned for rural electrification and rural telephone service during the 1930s and 1940s. Despite others urging him to run for the U.S. Senate, Poage remained in the House through the 1950s, '60s and '70s, building up power and influence through seniority. Poage became chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in 1967 and held that position until 1974.
In 1979, the W.R. Poage Legislative Library for Graduate Studies and Research was dedicated at Baylor. The facility houses not only Poage 's congressional papers, but also the papers of 12 other former U.S. Congressmen, six Texas legislators, five judges and more.
Poage also stayed busy by writing an autobiography, My First Eighty-five Years (1985), and four books on local history and politics: After the Pioneers (1969), Politics Texas Style (1974), McLennan County Before 1980 (1981) and How We Lived (1985).
The congressman died in Temple on Jan. 3, 1987 — the 50th anniversary of his arrival in Washington — and was buried in Waco's Oakwood Cemetery.
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