Waco History Podcast

Dr. Sloan talks more with Historian John Kamanec about The Case and Execution of Roy Mitchell in Waco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each autumn in the early part of the twentieth century, many Southerners made time for hog-killing. The slaughter offered a change in diet but more importantly, yielded enough food to help families get through the winter. Longtime Waco resident Louise Murphy recalls that hog-killing was a family affair, with even children given responsibilities: "They give me the intestines. I had to go get me some water, put them intestines in a pan of water. Then I had to get me a—a jar of something, get water in, hold his intestine up, and pour till it was clean on the inside. Then I put him on the table, and I would scrape him. I'd scrape him. I'd get a hairpin and put over, and I'd bring all that stuff out until you could see through that intestine just as clear as it could be. And that's what we stuffed our sausage in." Murphy describes a few hog delicacies: "The brains. I had a brother-in-law that had to have them brains and scrambled eggs. And my dad would save the liver and the lights. And my mother would go in and p

Dr. Sloan talks with Historian John Kamanec about The Case and Execution of Roy Mitchell in Waco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Junior high and middle school are not days that most people would want to relive. But awkward though they may be, these years influence the rest of our lives and hopefully provide some cherished memories. Woodrow Carlile of Waco reflects on his days at South Junior High School: "I'm left-handed, and I went in this class and I went to the blackboard and started writing with my left hand on the board. My teacher hit me a lick across the shoulder or something and said, ‘Quit playing around. Write with your right hand.' And, you know, to this day, I can't write on a blackboard with my left hand. I—(laughter) I guess I may have explained to her." Carlile's wife: "So I guess some of that—" "But I appreciated that teacher. She was—she had her problems. (laughter) But she was a good—and I especially enjoyed the woodworking and the metalworking shops and the harmonica clubs and the gym classes. And I may have related that the brother who is next to me, older, won the history medal. When he went up on the stage, they r

In the early 1900s, Texas enjoyed nearly 500 miles of electric interurban railways. The bulk of the mileage, about 70 percent, was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A line to Waco opened in 1913. Interurbans provided frequent passenger service between urban centers, setting them apart from what existing steam railway systems offered. Interurban lines were highly sought after, as Martha Howe recalls: "My great-grandfather, W. D. Lacy, started the—was instrumental in starting the interurban railroad that came to Waco. It was going to go in another direction, but he was very instrumental in getting it to come here." Howe remembers traveling on the interurban with her sister: "When Florence and I were little girls—and I'm thinking eight and ten or maybe a little bit older—Mother would take us down to the train station here in Waco and put us on the interurban and pay the conductor five dollars and say, ‘You watch these little girls.' We had matching suitcases, and we wore little hats. (laughter) And, 'You watch thes

In the early 1960s, many Southerners fed up with racial discrimination were participating in restaurant sit-ins, hoping to change the status quo. Robert Cogswell of Austin, a social justice activist, recalls taking part in the movement in Houston: "It was customary for black people who were demonstrating to have a token white among them to show that they weren't exclusivists. And I was often the token white. My activism had to do with a small group of youth in the NAACP who challenged the idea that Houston restaurants were already integrated. We spent our Saturdays driving around to restaurants and walking in and sitting down and not being served. We received a lot of responses that bordered on the absurd. A waitress would ignore us for a long time and then come to our table. In one case, the waitress said to me, "Are your friends Africans?" And it developed that if they were Africans, she was willing to serve them, but if they were American blacks, she was not. "In another case, I went into a restaurant with

Dr. Sloan and Rick reflect on the Crossroads series Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest: Sheriff Parnell McNamara Topics: McNamara Family Sheriff’s Department Early Law Officers John Wesely Hardin Sam Bass Judge Gerald Shootout Brann Shootout The Reservation Lorena Riots Bonnie and Clyde Kenneth McDuff  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Slaon continues his talk with Dr. Kenneth Hafertepe who is a professor and chair of the Department of Museum Studies at Baylor University about buildings around Waco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest: Sheriff Parnell McNamara Topics: McNamara Family Sheriff’s Department Early Law Officers John Wesely Hardin Sam Bass Judge Gerald Shootout Brann Shootout The Reservation Lorena Riots Bonnie and Clyde Kenneth McDuff  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pests—the creepy-crawly, buzzing kinds—are a year-round nuisance in Waco but are especially present in summer months, when they come out in full force and bring misery along with them. Louise Murphy describes her introduction to one such pest: "I didn't know anything about roaches until we got an icebox. I got acquainted with Mr. Roach. And off and on all the years, we still have a problem with Mr. Roach because they can get in these cracks in the ground where there's shift[s] in there, and you cannot get rid of them." Interviewer: "Well, what—what do you think it was about the icebox that—that—" "Oh, they were full of them. They love that. It was the coolness. Besides that, they—they had moisture down in under there, and they clung to that. And I didn't know what they was until we got one, and I couldn't imagine what that was." She recalls an experience with bedbugs in the 1950s: "Boy, they get in your bed, they get in your walls, and they would get in the cracks of the—under the house, the cracks and

Guests: Chris Hansen and Carl Hoover Topics: o Florence Gerald o Texas Guinan o Ann Gwynne o Cindy Walker o Victor Bozeman o Shannon Elizabeth o Peri Gilpin o Jennifer Love Hewitt o Steve Martin o Angela Kinsey o Thomas Harris o Terrance Malick o Kevin Reynolds o John Lee Hancock o Derek Haas and Michael Brandt o Waco in Films Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prohibition in the United States led to the decade most associated with flowing alcohol and crime. The Eighteenth Amendment, on the heels of the Volstead Act, put into place a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol in 1920. Local law enforcement agencies were not prepared. Helen Geltemeyer of Waco recalls a relative concocting whiskey during Prohibition: "But I have an aunt—his sister in Austin—made it. They made it in their bathtub. And the reason why they did there because if they found out the cops were coming, they'd just let it go down the drain." Ann and William Walko of Windber, Pennsylvania, explain how Prohibition affected the moonshine trade: A. Walko: "My grandmother, they said she was in jail almost every weekend. They take her to jail; my mother have to find somebody to go bail her out, you know. But that was survival. They had—they needed money, so they would make the moonshine. And these bachelors were all living with people. You know, they worked in the mine. And

Dr. Sloan talks to Jayme Lynn Blaschke about the storied history of the Infamous Chicken Ranch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Slaon talks with Dr. Kenneth Hafertepe who is a professor and chair of the Department of Museum Studies at Baylor University about buildings around Waco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the scorching months of a Texas summer, there's nothing quite so refreshing as playing in the water or at its edge. Wilma Bunton of Houston lived for five years in Galveston as a child. We would go to the beach and we called it bathing. My aunt brought her bathing suit. It was one of those old fashioned, looked like a short skirt. And had white, three rows of white braids around the bottom, it came just below her knees. She had black stockings that went up above her knees and bloomers around her. Doesn't sound real comfortable. No, she had bathing shoes on. And then she had a bathing cap, as it was called, that looked like a dust cap. And if she had fallen down in the water, we wouldn't have been able to save her. But the ladies at that time didn't swim. They even had puff sleeves, of all things. So that that would fill up with water, too. But we'd go down and we'd beach comb. Early in the morning it's easy to find the shells and you can even find the sand dollars that are not broken. If you pick them

Dr. Sloan talks with Buck Cole about the Evangelia Settlement that he helped achieve a state historical marker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Home remedies have been around for thousands of years, passed down from one generation to the next and utilizing common products to treat illnesses. In early 1900s Waco, these treatments abounded. Mary Sendón recalls home remedies her family used: "They would use coal oil and rock candy. It was supposed to be for coughs and chest colds. Then they used mustard plasters for chest pains and pneumonia. My—that's what they used on my grandfather in pneumonia. And this is a funny story about that: my grandfather really was a—they thought he was dying. He was having what they call sinking spells; you know, he'd just get so weak. It was during the Prohibition days, and the doctor could order whiskey from a drugstore with a prescription. Well, the doctor ordered a bottle of whiskey from Old Corner Drug Store. "And he told my—all of my aunts—everybody came together to help—and he said, ‘Get him an eggnog every thirty minutes.' And he told them how to do it: put a tablespoon of whiskey in a glass and fill it with egg be

This special episode covers the music of Jules Bledsoe, Hank Thompson, Johnny Gimble, Mercy Dee Walton, and Billy Joe Shaver. Guest: Jim Holmes, Waco City Councilman, District 5, investment banker, and music lover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the Great War came to an end in late 1918, a cloud hung over the jubilation; the world was suffering the worst pandemic in history. From 1918 to 1919, the Spanish Flu killed more people than the fighting did in World War I and infected more than a quarter of all Americans. Educator Wilma Buntin describes the flu striking her family in the Houston area: "And I remember my older brother Louis was the only one who didn't get sick. So he'd try to fix something for us for breakfast, or he'd tried to fix something for supper. None of us were interested whatsoever. They didn't have a doctor there, so you just had to do what you thought you could. And they knew to drink fruit juices and rest. Then he'd cry when he'd fix something. He said, ‘It's because I can't do a good job of cooking you all are not eating.' And he didn't—(laughter)." In a 1987 interview, Louie Mayberry recalls how the virus changed everyday life for children: "When we moved to San Antonio I started to school. I hadn't gone to school but a few