Sugar Land's Old Commerical District

Sugar Land's original commercial district has always fascinated me, possibly because I don't remember it at all. It's the same general location as the current-day Farmer's Market in front of the refinery along Kempner Street.

Judy Harrington Diamond (SLHS '59) gave me a copy of a video she and one of her children produced a few years ago.  (More about it in the future.)  I was overjoyed to find several photos I'd never seen before, including a few showing the interior of buildings in the old commercial district.  

Here is a photo to help orient you to the layout of the old commercial district.  I don't have an exact date, but you can see the old char house (the tallest building in the picture) has 'Cunningham Sugar Company' written on it.  The telephone cross-bar partially obscures the lettering, but I can tell that's a 'C' at the start of the name.  If I'm correct, this picture can't be later than 1908.  Whatever the exact date, the general layout of the old commercial district didn't change much until 1952, which the 'new' shopping center was constructed on the south side of Highway-90A.  I've annoted the buildings.  The current Char House (the red brick building) stands in the space between the old Company Office building and W. T. Eldridge, Sr.'s home.

Here's an early front view of the Drug Store.  

This next photo (from Judy's video) is the first I've ever seen of the interior of the Drug Store.  My mother says it shows the front counter on the 1st floor.  She can't identify the men shown in it, so I'd appreciate any help on further details.  (Sorry that I don't have high-resolution version of Judy's photos.)

(Update) Here's a larger version of the photo below - click on it.  The resolution is low, so it will appear blurrier as I blow it up.  However, I think the man in the middle is Dr. Carlos Slaughter. 

 

The same building housed other enterprises, including the doctors' offices.  Another was the telephone office.  I think the next photo (from Judy's video) shows the telephone office on the 2nd floor of this building.  I can't identify anyone, but the operator next to the man may be Helen Dunkerly Friend.

Here's a quote from Bob Armstrong's book, Sugar Land, Texas and The Imperial Sugar Company (1991): 

The Sugar Land telephone company originated in 1908 when Mr. Eldridge demanded a phone line from his home and his office to the plant superintendent in the sugar refinery.  It soon grew to three, then to ten, phones with one operator seated at a switchboard located in a corner of the corrugated iron building which housed the general offices. Additional lines were added from time to time to offices and to executive homes, but it was a limited system with only one operator on each shift until the early 1920s.  It normally took nearly all day to complete a telephone call to New York City.

In 1922 the telephone offices were relocated to the second floor of the corrugated iron building housing the drug store and soda fountain.  By 1929 there were 221 telephones in service and the company was extending its lines generally throughout eastern Fort Bend County and into parts of Harris County.  In 1931 the company was organized as the Harris-Fort Bend Telephone Company, owned by the Sugarland Industries. G. D. Ulrich was elected president and served in that capacity until his death in 1947, at which time T. L. James ... became president.

Here's a link to Sugar Land's first telephone directory, printed in 1929.  (My thanks go to Margaret Albritton Hill for allowing me to scan her copy.)

Here's a front view of the Company Offices in 1952, just before the new offices opened in the shopping center across the road.

This next photo shows the interior of the building, I think.  It comes from Judy's video; I don't have an exact date.  I think that's E. O. Guenther standing in the back.  (Here's a 1921 photo of the building.)

Here's a bonus photo from Judy's video.  It show Ira Harper in the Drug Store in the 'new' shopping center.  He's standing at the counter in the front corner (on the left as you walked in the front door).   On the left (near the front door) was a small ice cream case.  My dad walked home for lunch when we lived on Guenther St.  He'd stop at this counter and bring us Popsicles as a post-lunch treat.  On the right (out of view) was a pigeon-hole shelf on the wall.  I don't know exactly what Ira put in it, but I know people who subscribed to The Houston Press found their papers in the pigeon holes.  I guess The Press didn't do home delivery in Sugar Land.

(Update) I just got the following note from David [Davenport] Wickersham: "As always, thanks for the memories.  The Houston Press did make home deliveries in Sugar Land because I used to help Jackie Poe and his mother throw them. Especially on Sunday mornings.  It was a real "Tom Sawyer" deal when Jackie would let one of us boys spend the night at his house and help feed the farm animals and then get up at 4 AM to through the papers.  We went to Rouses' Drug Store and the papers were delivered by the paper truck.  We sat there and rolled the papers by hand and tied them with string.  Mrs. Poe had a calous on the edge of her hand that could chop wood from years of breaking that string.  We also did the Houston Post.

Regards,

David