This is a blog for old timers, plus their friends and families, who are linked by memories of Sugar Land and its schools or have an avid interest in the history of Sugar Land.
Here's a picture of the twirlers and drum major of Sugar Land High's marching band in the football season of 1946. They are from left to right: Gloria 'Tuggie' Laperouse Krehmeier, Margie Wappler Buchanan, Sally Rachuig Kelly, and Taz Watson. The location is Kempner Field in Sugar Land.
This photo comes from The Fort Bend Mirror. I don't know the exact date, but it's got to be in May, 1968. Becky Kelly Jons and Frank Lampson, both members of Dulles High's Class of '68, have won the local Jaycees citizenship awards. The location is the Dulles Gymnasium. From left to right you see Mr. Weldon Klaus (teacher), Richard Norman (Jaycees President), Becky Kelly, and Frank Lampson. (I'll ask Frank if there was any cash involved.)
For several consecutive summers FBISD organized trips to band camp at Tarleton State Teachers College in Stephenville, Texas. (It's now a part of the A&M System.) Linda Hagler Mosk (DHS '68) saved this concert program for the 14th annual camp in 1962. Many thanks to Linda for letting me scan it.
I think this was the first year I attended. Bradley Grimes was my roommate. (We had just finished the 6th grade and both played cornet.) I remember the tuition was $25 for a 5-day session; I know because my father gave me a check to give the registrar at enrollment on the first day, a Sunday if I recall correctly. The school ended with a concert of both bands on Thursday evening.
A doughnut shop across the main drag from the campus was a hot spot when we had free time. The pin-ball machine got a lot of business.
Notice that Linda got Clarence Sawhill and Hilmar Wagner to sign her program. Mr. Sawhill was director of bands at UCLA. All his summer students admired him. He was a superb teacher and mentor to young band students. I don't recall much about Mr. Wagner, but he must have been a pretty good guy, too.
I've posted one of Linda's photos from this camp in an earlier entry on this blog.
Sugar Land High School published a student newspaper in the late 1920s called Campus Chatter. They published this edition on February 22, 1929 - 81 years ago. You'll see the big news was the Boys County Basketball Tournament played in Richmond the week before. The previous issue says Sugar Land was favored to win, but they lost their first game against Beasley. (Four teams participated: Richmond, Rosenberg, Sugar Land, and Beasley. Richmond was the winner.)
You'll also notice an article about a girl's basketball game to be played that week in Sugar Land. I can't figure out where the boys and girls teams played their home games. Sugar Land didn't build a gym until 1932. They may have played outside on the tennis court. Also note the girls basketball team was not called the Alligators. They were known as the 'Devils'!!
This item struck me as very funny. As I scanned T. C.'s archive (thanks to his wife Marjorie) I found this letter of 'complaint' he wrote to Dave Campbell, publisher of 'Texas Football,' a yearly magazine devoted to Texas football on all levels.
T. C. is correcting Campbell on his article in the issue published in the late summer of 1964. I've included Campbell's response.
I recently borrowed a DVD from Dot Hightower and her daughter, Scotty Bass. It has footage from a couple of Sugar Land High School football games from the 1956 season. The games are the Bi-District Championship against Orchard and the Regional Championship against Barbers Hill. Naturally, Sugar Land won both games to claim the Regional Championship.
The tail-end of the DVD had a short clip of a track meet on it. I can recognized two participants - Butch Boyd and Punt Helmcamp. My best guess is that the meet occurred in the spring of 1958. I have no idea of it's location. Maybe an old-timer can provide that info.
This was one of my favorite Saturday morning shows in the mid-1950s. The original host was Smilin' Ed O'Connell, and the show's name was Smilin' Ed's Gang. He died in 1954 - I think. I can barely remember him, but I remember Andy Devine's version of the show pretty well.
As you can see from the clip, Buster Brown Shoes was the sponsor. (I wore Buster Brown Shoes. I can remember buying them at a shoe store in Rosenberg.) Jerry Maren, a midget, played Buster Brown and did the ads in live-action with his dog, Tige. (You can see Maren in the introduction.)
The show had skits with puppets, like Midnight the Cat and Froggie The Gremlin. He always appeared or disappeared when he 'plunked his magic twanger.' The show usually had a serial in it. The only one I can remember was one involving a young boy in India who had all types of adventures.
What impressed me most back then was the audience. They had a theater full of kids who appeared to be unsupervised. They went ape all through the show. You could always hear them screaming, yelling, and laughing to beat the band. Sometime the camera would pan the theater and kids seemed to be everywhere, jumping up and down in their seats. You get a sense of the mayhem at the end of this clip, although I recall seeing scenes where they were much rowdier. Maybe it's just my imagination.
The picture below comes from an edition of The Houston Post, published in January, 1952. It contained several articles and ads highlighting the new shopping center in Sugar Land. One of them was this ad for White's Cafe. It shows the original location, which was roughly where the west end of the shopping center sat. Many will remember the new location across Ulrich Street from The Palms Theater.
Charlie and Mildred White ran the cafe for a while. Herbert Haas bought it and ran it for quite a while. Marshall Durr and others may have owned and operated it, but eventually the McGinneses ran it in the mid-1960s.
The original White's Cafe was also referred to as the 'root beer' stand. They had car hops who'd bring food and drinks to patrons who stayed in their cars. I know T. C. and Marjorie Rozelle met there. It was a teen hangout for a long time. My mother has told me Charlie White hired Dale Tatum, a resident of the Humble Camp south of town, as a short-order cook when Dale was just 14-years old. My brother has interviewed Marie Muehr Dunkerly and learned that she worked there.
Sugarland Industries published a newspaper in the 1920s. It was the Texas Commercial News, and it offered W.T. Eldridge the chance to tout Sugar Land and lure new business interests to the town. The masthead includes the phrase, local section. If the paper included other sections, T.C. didn't have them.
T.C. Rozelle saved three copies. I've posted one here. Notice the article on the gasoline-engine rail cars Eldridge bought. It says Eldridge 'leased trackage rights into Houston.' I wonder if this is the beginning of the 'Dinky.'
This edition of the Texas Commercial News includes Campus Chatter, which was the school's weekly newspaper. They published the school paper separately later on. T.C. has a dozen of them from late 1928 to early 1929. They are fascinating. I will post them over the next few months.
As I looked at the issues of Texas Commercial News published on December 6 & 13, 1924, I noticed two articles about the silent movie, "North of 36." I've posted the articles below. The first is an ad for the movie, "Abraham Lincoln," screened on December 20th. Note the paragraph below the ad.
The second is an article from the paper published the following week on December 13th. It plays up the buzz caused due to the movie (a full-length Hollywood feature) being filmed near Sugar Land. I like the phrase, 'don't be a slacker or a knocker.'
The public could see the film on January 10th, 1925 and contribute to a good cause, SLISD's PTA. Here is a poster for the film.
I did some research and found this information on the exact location of the filming. Click here.
These photos come from T.C. Rozelle's archive. Most of them were used in company promotions and press releases. Many appear in newspaper articles. The candid photos of W.T. Eldridge, Sr. in his office are fascinating to me and a little artistic.(Note: The handwriting under some of the photos is T.C.'s.)
This photo of I.H. Kempner, Sr. must date from sometime around WWI - a few years after he and W.T. Eldridge, Sr. formed Sugarland Industries.
I assume the photo on the far-right shows Mr. Eldridge at his desk in the old Imperial - Sugarland Industries office. He looks like he means business in the middle photo.
The photo on the right shows Gus Ulrich relaxing on the porch of his home on Venice - I guess. I'll have to check a photo of his home to see if it had a porch. My mother has told me Gus was know for wearing spectator shoes - like the ones you see in this photo.
The following photo shows Harry Thompson, General Manager of Imperial Sugar for many years.
The following is a picture of W.T. Eldridge, Jr. He and his family lived in the large, white-stucco home on the south side of Highway 90A southeast of his father's home. They were both built in a Mediterranean style by William Ward Watkin, I think. Eldridge, Jr. was an unsuccessful businessman and died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound in the late 1920s.
Here is a photo from the McMeans Collection at Rice University. No doubt Mr. Robert Laperouse took it because the photo shows his daughters, Wynnell (SLHS '46) and Gloria 'Tuggie' (SLHS '48), as they are waiting for a train at the Sugar Land train depot. They may have been waiting for the 'Dinky,' a two-car commuter train that ran on the Southern Pacific tracks. I wish I could find a picture of the Dinky.
