Stay ConnectedDr. Stephen Sloan of Baylor’s Institute for Oral History and Department of History explores the people, places, and stories that have shaped Waco, Texas.
Through interviews, local-history insights, and narrative storytelling, the podcast highlights both well-known events and lesser-told community histories—helping listeners learn more about Waco and its place in broader Texas history.
Guest(s): Dr. Mike Parrish
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Dr. Slaon talks with Baylor alumnus John Dennis Anderson about Madison Alexander Cooper, Jr. Madison Cooper was an American businessman and philanthropist from Waco, Texas, and is best remembered for his long novel Sironia, Texas (1952), which made publishing history at that time as the longest novel in English originally published in book form, in two volumes totaling 1,731 pages, containing an estimated 840,000 words.
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Guest(s): Mayor Dillon Meek
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In the early to mid-1900s in Waco, circuses were the stuff of children's dreams and stirred excitement from the moment they rolled into town.
Charles Armstrong recalls circus members on Seventeenth Street, when they were performing on the Cotton Palace grounds:
"By the corner, they had a fireplug right behind where Safeway store is right now—old Safeway store. And had a fireplug, and they'd water the elephants and water the animals and carry the water to the circus ground[s] from there. And we could see all from our house."
Helen Geltemeyer remembers thinking about the Big Top while a student at Bell's Hill School:
"I always wanted to go to the circus when [it] came to town. Never did. But we had a lot of trees along on Cleveland [Avenue] side there where we could sit. They had little benches around the tree. And I decided I'd show them how the clowns would jump off of this bench. Brother, I felt like my arm went through my body, and they had to take me into the—the cafeteria and put ice on it. But I—I really did think I was smart."
Wilbert Hutchinson grew up on First Street and tells about his front-row seat to the circus:
"We lived right in front of the railroad, and I remember passenger trains coming. Like I say, we stayed in this big old house, and it had what they call banisters around there, and we would climb up on them. And we would holler and wave at these peoples when we hear. And when a circus came to town, they done all their unloading right in front of us house. And we got to see all the animal[s]. Even if we didn't make it to the circus and my dad didn't have no money to go, we got to watch all the animals. We come out and we stand there on the porch, and we watch all the unloading taking place."
Circuses could not sneak into town, not that they wanted to, as Thomas Wayne Harvey describes:
"I can remember the steam engine trains coming in here with boxcars, fifty and sixty long, in behind two different trains. And they'd set them off on the sidings down there, and they'd take the elephants to pull the wagons that had the lions and the tigers and all the other various animals. And the deals had iron wheels with rubber on it—not tires but hard rubber on it. It was odd to see the animals walk, pull, and do all these things that was done, and the calliope would go down the street whistling its tune, you know.
"They'd go down Eleventh. At that time, Eleventh Street went all the way through—it was no I-35—and it went all the way through to La Salle. They'd go out there to Eleventh Street, in between Eleventh and Fifteenth on La Salle on the far side of the street. They'd set up camp over there on about—oh, about fifty or seventy-five acres over there. I've seen the circuses come in here, and I'd be down at midnight when they'd start unloading and watch them until—you know, you just fall asleep watching them."
Since the early 1900s, circuses worldwide have struggled to stand out amid other entertainment options—namely movies, radio, and television. And in more recent years, animal rights activists have challenged the treatment of animals in circus exhibitions. But the circus has survived and continues as a memorable childhood experience.
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Guest(s): John Morris
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Dr. Sloan visits the Dr. Pepper Museum during their "The People Who Made Dr. Pepper LIVE" and interviews Bj Greaves, and Harvey Griggs.
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Topics: Overview, the concept of crossroads as a way to understand Waco
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"in the morning of January 22, 1927, Baylor University's basketball team set out by bus for Austin to play the University of Texas that night. The game, however, would never be contested. Ten of the twenty-two passengers died when a train hit the team's bus at a crossing in Round Rock--the worst such accident in Texas history at the time. The students who died soon became known as "The Immortal Ten," eulogized across the state and nation. This is their story."
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Episode #1 – Waco as Crossroads
Guest(s): Claire Kultgen MacDonald
Topics: Overview, the concept of crossroads as a way to understand Waco
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In the late 1800s, cotton was the driving force in Waco's economy, and the city wanted to implement a fall festival to celebrate the white substance. With a newly built exposition hall, Waco held its first Cotton Palace in 1894, and it was a great success. The building burned shortly after the month-long event but was rebuilt and opened again in 1910, and for two decades the Cotton Palace drew people from all over the state with sights and sounds galore.
Helen Geltemeyer, who grew up in the Bell's Hill area, describes the festival in the 1920s:
"And they had horse races at the Cotton Palace. Then right in the middle was the football field. Then they had all these other barns, like [Helmut] Quiram. Mr. Quiram there on Burnett had all these horses for you to go ride them. They had motorcycle races there; just everything they could try to do. Mr. [Benjamin W.] Cheaves, C-h-e-a-v-e-s, was the manager of the Cotton Palace. The main thing is—where we had fun—is going in the display of all the women putting their clothes and their canning in the woman's building. It was wonderful and—because they had these big, glassed-in things where you couldn't touch it."
She recalls how the festival involved local schoolchildren:
"Because every little school would be in the Cotton Palace. At the end, we'd have all these little dances up in that coliseum. See, that coliseum wasn't little; it was big. And that—the stage part—they left the stage there for years and then put the swimming pool there. But it was such a big thing. And I remember being in little dances, our school represented."
Geltemeyer describes one year she and her sister attended:
I'll never forget: some men came—Masonic men came to our house. They were visiting. And my sister and I were begging Mama to give us some money so we could go to the Cotton Palace. And these men gave us a quarter apiece, I think it was. But when we got down there at Fifteenth and Ross where—that was one of the gates close to our house—instead of on Flint and Cleveland, it was Ross. We would go through this gate to go to school and everything else. They took my quarter—our quarters to get in, and then we didn't even have any money to ride anything. We were so defeated because we didn't have enough money. (laughter)"
Martha Emmons came to Waco in 1914 to attend Baylor and recalls her experiences at the Cotton Palace in a 1978 interview:
"We used to come to ballgames and to other things out there, and I remember one time I was with a group that sang. Now laugh that off all you want to, but just the same I was. The streetcars would stack up at that end of the line. And the midway was the big show, you know, where you'd have, oh, the rides and all that sort of thing. And then the exhibits were in the exhibit hall. And the queen's ball was a big feature and beautiful, magnificent gowns."
The Cotton Palace held its last festival in 1930 because of the depression that was ravaging the country. But Waco residents breathed new life into the tradition in 1970, and the Cotton Palace continues today as a yearly stage production that tells the history of Waco.
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