Treasures of The Texas Collection

Lane and Scott: Architects of WacoScript for KWBU-FM and Texas NPR Stations

By Terri Jo Ryan

HOST (Mary Landon Darden)

The first three decades of the 20th century in Waco were times of explosive growth and a booming economy, driven largely by the thriving cotton industry. And where business bustled, you could be sure to see two names emerge again and again as the go-to guys for erecting monuments to prosperity – Roy E. Lane and Milton Scott, architects of Central Texas.

Terri Jo Ryan, freelance writer and vice-chairperson of the Waco History Project, has lived in the Waco area for more than eight years. In her ramblings around town – as a professional writer – she has driven past some of these wonderful old structures hundreds of times, but rarely ventured inside for a closer look.

 Welcome back to the show, Terri Jo

Thanks for having me back to discuss these influential designers of early 20th century Waco.

So, why is it that you have not toured these historic buildings, Terri Jo?

Well, many of the surviving Roy E. Lane or Milton Scott buildings are in private hands, still in use as primary residences. But a few prominent exceptions include such public venues as the ALICO Building and the old Riggins/Raleigh Hotel – which is now a federal building -- the Waco Hippodrome, the Dr Pepper Museum and churches such as First Baptist Waco or St. Francis on the Brazos Catholic Church.

Well, before we delve into the buildings themselves, and what made them stand the test of time, tell us first about the people who created them.

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Sure. I’ll start with Roy E. Lane. Roy Elspeth Lane was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1884. He received his early education there and later studied at the University of Minnesota, from which he earned degrees in architecture and civil engineering.

Lane moved to Texas in 1907, settling in Waco, and established an architectural office here. He married a local woman, Katharine Blackston, in 1911.  He quickly earned a reputation as a skilled practitioner of form and function, and for the next 2½ decades Lane designed numerous buildings in Central Texas, including the Waco Public Library and the W. W. Cameron residence. He also had a hand in the design of the 22-story Amicable Building – more on that later -- which dominates the Waco skyline to this day. Was he solely a Waco architect, or was he commissioned across the state?

Word spread of his talents, and he was hired throughout the Lone Star State. Besides his work in Waco, he also designed courthouses in Bosque and Runnels counties, for example. In fact, in 1936 Lane moved his practice to Dallas. Among his best-known works there were the Southwestern Motor Freight Bureau, the Haggar Slacks Company plant, and the Guiberson Corporation office building.  Lane was among the founding members of the Texas chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Texas Association of Architects, serving as president of the TAA in 1918-19. In 1954, he was elevated to an honorary membership in the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He died in Dallas on August 7, 1956, and was buried at Restland Memorial Park.

Sounds like he was a tremendously busy man throughout his long career.

Indeed! In 1910, he was hired by a consortium of prominent Waco businessmen to design the resurrected Texas Cotton Palace Exposition. The original Cotton Palace, at 13th Street and Clay Avenue, opened in 1894 for a three-week extravaganza of entertainment, exhibits and social soirees, but it was destroyed by fire some 6 months after it opened and not re-built for more than 15 years.And by late 1911, according to a Waco newspaper clipping, he was already being recognized as a municipal powerhouse. In an article about his being named the new president of the Young Men’s Business League, the newspaper likened his influence in civic affairs to the importance of the mayor in terms of power and prestige. The Young Men’s Business League was the precursor to today’s Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, and was, to use the language of the day –

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“composed of upward of 1,000 of the flower of the young business element of this city.”

At the time, of course, he was occupied with designing Waco public schools, private homes, business structures, public facilities and churches.

Lane designed many of Waco's landmark downtown buildings: the Riggins AKA Raleigh Hotel at 8th Street and Austin Avenue, now a federal office building; First Baptist Church at 5th Street and Webster Avenue, a sanctuary dedicated in 1908. It features a domed ceiling, ringed balcony and stained glass windows; and in 1913, he designed the Waco Hippodrome Theatre at 724 Austin Avenue, a vaudeville house that opened in February 1914.

At the Texas Collection, you can see his sketches for the Hippodrome, and early photos of the finished product. Tickets for shows then were ten cents for adults, five cents for children, and box seats were only a quarter. The theater was operated by H.P. Hulsey and known at the time as "Hulsey's Hipp.” Later, it was an affiliate of Paramount Studios’ chain. A fire in the projection booth in 1928 destroyed much of the front of the building, and the consequent renovation resulted in the Spanish Colonial Revival style that folks now see.

The popular theater reopened in 1929 under new management with a new name, the Waco Theater, and survived three rounds of renovations until it closed in the late 1970s. A six-year project in the 1980s to renovate it as a community performing arts center led to both the re-opening in February 1987 and its addition to the National Register of Historic Places.

Who were some of the leading citizens Roy Lane designed homes for, back in the day?

I was tickled to find in the archives of the Texas Collection a leather-bound book  of his, a portfolio of sorts that catalogued some of his commissions, many of which appeared to be shot by Fred A. Gildersleeve, the leading commercial photographer in town in that era. Sometimes the speculative drawing in Lane’s own hand accompanied the photos.

He designed the homes of merchant princes Asher and Sam Sanger, members of the Sanger Brothers mercantile dynasty; the home of Robert S. Lazanby, a beverage chemist and early executive of Dr Pepper fame; the up date of the 1990’s William Waldo Cameron home, for the business tycoon son of the Scottish

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immigrant timberman who built his fortune in lumber; and S.P. McLendon, an executive with the Tom Padgitt Co., oldest business in town.

A Texas State Historical marker notes one of the still standing homes he designed: The Flowers House, at 600 W. Third Street in Eddy, was the home of local cotton gin operator Felix A. Flowers (1870-1950) and his wife Lucinda Mixson Flowers (1875-1949), a local social and civic leader. Completed in 1910, the house reflects craftsman influences evident in much of Lane's work and is a reminder of the economic prosperity that cotton brought to the area in the early 20th century. The house remained in the Flowers family until it was sold in 1957.

What about that Bed and Breakfast on 19th Street and Austin Avenue?

Another of Lane’s private commissions, a home at 1910 Austin Avenue, was designed originally for the William H. Johnson family. He and his father, C.L. Johnson, owned a large lumber company at 8th street and Clay Avenue. The younger Johnson moved to California in 1917 and sold the house to the Staton family, who lived there more than 30 years before it was purchased by the J.D. Metz family who owned it until 1962. The house then went to G.A. Durham of Durham Business College, who lived there but a few years before it was turned into a series of kindergarten operations.

The Roane M. Lacy, Jr. family took possession of 1910 Austin Avenue in 1973, and it remained a private residence until a business partnership in 1980 opened a retail establishment called The Austin Arrangement. Later, a new owner operated Max’s restaurant in the house, until William and Doreen Ravenscroft opened a retail flower shop in the house in 1985.

Since 1998, the house has been operated as a bed-and-breakfast known as The Cotton Palace, and is owned by Becky Hodges and Dutch & Betty Schroeder. Their renovations have restored many of the distinct characteristics of that style. Most notably, the original green Rookwood tile fireplace (that through the years has been painted a variety of colors), the original light fixtures, the brass door knocker, the ceiling beams and ornamental woodwork.

Unfortunately, many of Lane’s designs have been destroyed. For example, he designed the Huaco Clubhouse, which burned down in the 1920s; the Waco Opera House, the State House Hotel, the Savoy Hotel, the New Katy Hotel and the

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Archenhold Building – among other lost buildings. But you can see some of his genius at work at The Cottonland Castle, 3300 Austin Avenue.

But I understand that Lane didn’t design The Castle.

Well, he didn’t do the original work, that’s true. Lane was brought in around 1910 to help finish what had been started 20 years earlier, when John Tennant, a stone contractor, made a deal with banker J.W. Mann for a square tract of land 350 feet by 350 feet. Tennant carried leftover cut stone from the then-new Provident building downtown to his plot of land and started building a stone house. But Tennant had financial woes, and in 1906 sold the property to cotton broker Ripley Hanrick, who bought it with the agreement that Tennant would continue the stonework. The sandstone walls with limestone detailing and the round tower on the northeast corner of the plot went up slowly and for a many months, little if any work was done.

So, sometime around 1910, businessman Alfred Abeel (1845-1922), a Civil War veteran, bought the property and hired contractor N.P. Lowrey to work with Lane to finish The Castle. It was finally completed in 1914, nearly a quarter of a century after it was begun.

I’ve lived here a long time, and have often passed by The Castle, and wondered about what it was like on the inside. Does the interior match that intriguing exterior?

Indeed, fine materials such as marble and mahogany embellish the interior. The front door to this 6,600 square-foot dwelling is made of solid oak, measuring more than 9 feet tall and weighing 400 pounds. Yet, the story goes, it is so well balanced that the door can be moved by a small child. The main door opens into an entrance hall, 9 feet by 15 feet in size. To the left, there is a main stairway that goes from the main level to the second floor which contains the bedrooms.

Off to the right is the drawing room. The term "drawing room" comes from the medieval castle term "withdrawing room" where the king or lord of the manor could have his privacy. The living room measures 18-feet by 24-feet, and has a mantel over the fireplace designed to hold a mounted stag head, in the tradition of medieval castles. Inscribed on the mantel is a Latin phrase which translated into English reads, "The divine guidance of God sustains me.” The Castle boasts eight fireplaces. Also on the main level is the library and a sun room with views of the 20-foot by 40-foot swimming pool and cabana.

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The "basement" level is mostly above ground, and contains the kitchen, large pantry, boiler room, and den and breakfast room. The wine cellar is in the basement portion of the tower. The next higher level of the tower contains part of the stairway landing. On the floor above that, is a boudoir off the master bedroom, and forth level is the roof level. There is a second tower over the garage and servants quarters. Its original function was to hold a water tank.

A family named Pipkin lived in the house for many years. In 1969, it was sold to Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Schwan. In 1990 the Castle was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Ginzburg. In 1999 Mr. and Mrs. Hatch Bailey purchased The Cottonland Castle fully furnished as a home in which to reside with their four sons. It was sold again in September 2006 to Ms. Russell Giles and Clarisse Carter. 

Now, how much of a hand did Roy Lane have in the design of the ALICO building?

 The ALICO, opened in 1911 as the Amicable Life Insurance Company building, was designed by Lane in conjunction with the Fort Worth firm of Sanguinet & Staats. Their aim was to make an indestructible building of a classic design – which ended up as a 22-story. Construction notes said the building’s lower stories would be “faced with polished granite” and limestone, richly molded, “and the upper stories faced with vitrified brick and terra cotta. No money has been wasted in useless ornamentation or heavy stucco work, but the design is massive and simple, without the incorporation of any imitation materials, and will be both artistic and highly pleasing to the eye."

Lane’s notes talked about “massive granite columns three and one-half feet in diameter and thirty-one feet high. The entrance doors are of a heavy cast bronze and plate glass.” He mentioned the floors and walls would be finished with a selection of highly colored, polished marble imported from Europe, and ceiling ornamentation of “Roman gold and metallic effects.”

He paid special attention to the passenger elevator service: “There will be three high speed, gearless, traction elevators, large and commodious cars, having rubber tile floors and being finished in bronze, and running at a speed of 650 feet per minute.” Operators could vary the speed to insure smooth and easy starting and stopping, without any perceptible jar. These elevators were equipped with safety devices and fire-proofed.

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Must have been the talk of the town.

During the year-long construction at the corner of 5th Street and Austin Avenue, which started in August 1910, a steady stream of people would stroll by to view the skyscraper work. Every Saturday, market day downtown for the country folk of the surrounding communities, would bring scores of shoppers and gawkers by to see the latest activity on the site.

It required more than 30 teams of man and mule to truck all the excavation dirt from the construction site. A pit 45-feet deep had been dug for the piers in the foundation to support the weight of the 40 million-pound structure. One estimate said that if all the materials in its construction were laid end-to-end, it would have taken a train 16 miles long to haul it all in.

The steel came from New York City, by way of ship to Galveston, and then by rail to Waco. The steel-framed building was designed to handle a hurricane wind load, making it ridged enough to withstand the pressure of the heaviest storms. It was termed a fireproof building with steel frame, tile and concrete construction, and almost no exposed wood.

All offices were equipped with electric lights, both chandeliers and wall bracket, and illuminating gas. Each hallway had a white porcelain water fountain with refrigerated artesian water found on site, when the foundation was being dug. A complete power plant, including electric-generating machinery, high-pressure boilers for power and heating, conduits and outlets for telephone service, as well as oil-burning lamps in hallways, were all major components of the finished building.The final cost of the building was $755,000 – or about $17.2 million in today’s dollars.

Between 1911 and 1940, the ALICO Building was the place to be if you were a lawyer, accountant, doctor or dentist. A beauty shop and a barber shop operated on site for decades. In 1933, WACO radio station established a studio on the 8th floor and a tower on the roof of the building which operated there for many years. The ALICO as a “tower of strength” in the community proved itself most ably on May 11, 1953, when the 22-story structure swayed but did not break in the F5 winds that accompanied the Waco tornado that devastated downtown. More than 100 people were killed, and several hundred injured, while millions of dollars in property damage were inflicted by the storm. But the ALICO, the tallest building west of the Mississippi and South of the Mason-Dixon Line until 1929, lost only a few windows and some skylights.

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You mentioned earlier that Lane designed churches in addition to homes. Besides First Baptist Waco, what other house of worship can we see his handiwork?

Well, when I first came to Waco in September 2001, I recall driving around town and seeing St. Francis on the Brazos Catholic Church, and thinking it had to be more than 150 years old. It looked just like those old Spanish missions in San Antonio. But, I learned that the church was built in 1931 purposely modeled by its architect, Roy Lane, to resemble those much older churches of the old Southwest.

Located on the Northwest corner of North 3rd Street and Jefferson Avenue, it is a reproduction of the Baroque style old Mission San Jose in San Antonio, built in 1720 by the Franciscan friars and their Indian converts. Lane studied the colonial architecture of Mexico and did many field trips to San Antonio with the monks to fill up his sketchbooks and seek inspiration.

The facade is ornamented with six life-size statues of saints, and the entire arch of the entrance is carved in a flower and fruit design. The stone carving was done by Frank T. Johnson. The famous sacristy window of San Jose was faithfully reproduced, according to the news clippings from the Waco Press of September 11, 1931. The reporter noted that the outside dimensions were exact to the model, with only a subtle shift for an interior chapel.

St. Francis on the Brazos is a work of art unto itself, and worthy of a field trip by lovers of Roy Lane, mission architecture, Italian painting and religious beauty.

How long did Roy Lane stay active in his field?

According to newspaper clippings at The Texas Collection from the Dallas Morning News of August 8, 1935, Lane was the designer of the Civilian Conservation Corps camp at White Rock Lake. He designed five barracks, mess hall and welfare building to accommodate 240 young men in this New Deal program. The CCC, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in the depths of the Great Depression to set unemployed youth to work on community projects, was known as Uncle Sam’s Army of Tree Planters – among other nicknames. The program paid physically fit single men between ages 18 and 28 some $30 per month to help build parks, dams, roads, fight forest fires and projects involving erosion and flood control measures. Most of the money was sent home to support parents and siblings.

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Anyway, Lane’s contributions to the CCC program, which started in 1933, proved so valuable, the following year he was recognized as the first “State Parks Architect” in Texas. He also designed Brownwood State Park, for example.According to some of the news clippings in his biographical files at The Texas Collection, during World War II, Lane was the chief architect for the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, as well as designer of the Shumaker, Naval Ordnance Plant in Camden, Ark. Those are the latest references I could find. 

Let’s move on, then, to Milton Scott. Tell me about him, and his stamp on Waco.

Sure. Milton W. Scott was known as the Dean of Waco Architects, a self-taught genius who trained as a draftsman before taking the reins of his own business. Milton William Wallace Scott was born on August 23, 1872, in New Orleans, Louisiana, from a long line of Scottish builders, engineers and inventors. His father, George, for example, was a master shipbuilder who also received a patent for a safety device he crafted for elevators.

At age 11, when his father died, the family moved to Waco to be closer to his mother’s kin, the Gourleys. The man of the house, he had to support three sisters and his widowed mother in 1883.Thus, never formally educated, the book-loving would-be architect began his career as a teen by training as an apprentice carpenter and then as a draftsman for his stepfather, John P. Powers. Scott worked for other local firms, as well.

In 1906, he formed his first partnership with Glenn Allen, one of the collaborators on the First Baptist Church sanctuary. It was during this partnership that he also designed the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Plant, known now as the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute.  Although damaged in the 1953 tornado, the strong bones of the building ensured that it could be repaired relatively scar-free.

From 1907 through 1908, he worked with Roy E. Lane on homes for Waco’s finest citizens and The Brazos Investment Company. They designed the Rotan Grocery Company at the corner of 5th Street and Mary Avenue. By 1910, he partnered with T. Brooks Pearson to work on Waco High School, which was finished in 1913 at a cost of $140,000 (or about $3 million in today’s dollars) at 815 Columbus Avenue. The three-story structure plus basement was designed as a fire-proof building with reinforced concrete. Newspaper accounts of the times say it had two large study

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halls with a capacity of 320 each, and a second-floor gallery that could accommodate 800 students.

During this same era, the Pearson-Scott collaboration also produced the Waco Drug Co., now known as the Southwestern Drug Company building, catty-corner from the Dr Pepper plant. Scott, Pearson and Dean were responsible for the Goldstein- Miguel Company store, a four-story structure plus basement that was, at the time, one of the largest dry good stores in all of Texas. He designed literally scores of commercial buildings throughout downtown, including the Roosevelt Hotel at 4th street and Austin Avenue – which has undergone a $15 million renovation to restore it to its former glory after many years of service as a nursing home and senior high rise.

When did Scott finally strike out on his own?

About 1913, I think. Until that time, you could see his ads in city directories always mentioning other partners. As an independent architect, he would occasionally take on an “associate,” such as Dudley S. Green from 1913-1916; and Earl M. King from 1913-1926, and maybe 2-to-3 draftsmen as the workload dictated.

Besides the Romanesque Dr Pepper structure, one of his other buildings listed on the National Register of Historical Places is the McDermott Motors Building, also known as the Fort Fiske Wright building, at 1125 Washington Avenue.

Besides First Baptist Church, are any of his other Scott-designed churches still around?

Indeed! First Lutheran Church of Waco, at 10th Street and Jefferson Avenue, literally has his fingerprints all over it; as does St. John United Church of Christ in Robinson (constructed in 1910); The Church of Christ Scientist at 11th Street and Columbus Avenue; even the Masonic Temple at 8th Street and Washington Avenue bears his imprint.

He designed the second Temple for Rodef Sholom, the Reform congregation, in 1910 – replacing the 1881 structure located at 924 Washington Avenue.

Besides Waco High School and 18 other buildings for Waco public schools – including the old Sanger Elementary structure – Scott also designed several of the

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educational buildings at the Methodist Children’s Home, then known as an orphanage.

He also designed numerous buildings at Baylor University, the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor and Texas A&M University, as well as collaborating on some buildings in Denton at Texas Woman’s University.

How about his private homes? For whom did he design?

I know of at least 10 homes he designed which are still standing, in addition to the Palm Court Apartments at 2005 Austin Avenue, which opened in 1923. TheAlbert T. Clifton House, 26th Street at Austin Avenue, is now used by the Junior League of Waco; and there’s the Louie Miguel house at 1425 Columbus Avenue. Other examples are found at 1401 Columbus Avenue, the Thompson House at 16th street and Barron Avenue; The H.W. Carver House at 24th Street and Colcord Avenue; and the Pio Crespi home at 2105 Austin Avenue.

I am familiar with many of these houses and they are beautiful and enduring. I imagine Scott had quite a following?

Well, disciples, you could say. B.J. Greaves, a local preservationist, wrote a book in 1998 with Mildred G. Walker, curator of collections at Dr Pepper, titled “Milton Scott’s Waco.” It catalogues what Scott structures were still standing in 1998.

Greaves, an architect himself, says that Scott’s meticulous craftsmanship was evident from Day One to his later years, and that “his integrity of materials and design never flagged.” His work literally withstood the test of time: if you look from the suspension bridge toward downtown, looking at the path of the 1953 tornado, every structure of more than one story that survived the storm – save Lane’s ALICO, of course – was a Milton Scott building. Every other building is now gone. This is the final “concrete proof” if you will, that Scott’s skills and strict adherence to specifications provided building owners with a wonderful service.“I think he had a lot of influence over the details. As prolific as he was, he was also a perfectionist,” Greaves noted in his work.

According to John Milton Scott, who died in July 2003 at age 87, his father was a very exacting sort of fellow, consumed by his work to such an extent that he only took two vacations in the last 15 years of his life. John Scott had left Waco as a young man for a career in mechanical engineering in Houston and retired to Waco in 1990.

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Milton Scott was obsessed over the details so much that he must have been a real nuisance to the contractors working for him.

Notorious for his insistence that the exact specifications be followed, he would explain that he was the building owner’s on-site representative and thus would not allow any poor workmanship or materials to escape his scrutiny. From the early design phase through the punch list, he was a meticulous and ethical taskmaster, the younger Scott recalled.

John Scott told Greaves that his father was so intense, he would work six days a week, and sometimes even Sunday mornings, pausing from his labors only for the occasional family movie outing at the Hippodrome or rare weekend camping jaunt.“My father told me that if you accept a project, do it right,” he said. “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.”

For example, he reported that his father designed the old Cotton Palace pavilion, but Milton Scott refused to sign off on the quality of the roof. “The Cotton Palace board went around him and approved it,” John Scott said. “From then on, it always leaked.”

What do we know about his private life?

In 1911, Milton Scott married Ivy Eugenia Thompson Haythornwhite and they had two children. He purchased a house on Fourth Street, near what is now the Waco police station, and then built a cluster of apartments and cottages around it. That property is known as Terrace Garden apartments, which still stand and are a popular student housing alternative.

He built Palm Court Apartments on Austin Avenue around 1920 for R.T. Dennis, the department store magnate who lived next door to the property. Several years earlier Scott had built the Dennis home, a large, opulent house also designed in the Tudor style.

Milton Scott’s career was cut short when he died in 1933. The workaholic was a heavy smoker with health issues, which likely contributed to his death at age 60. He was also suffering from financial distress:  When the Great Depression hit, Milton Scott was working on his own project, an apartment complex in downtown Waco called the Mar-Jon, using craftsmen from Denmark and Sweden.

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During the economic collapse, however, he lost most of his life savings and had to hustle to find architectural commissions. He lost the bid to build the new post office and federal building on Franklin Avenue, and financial hardships forced him to lay off draftsmen and other employees.

Alas, many of his creations have been demolished through years of so-called urban renewal.

Thank you, Terri Jo Ryan, for sharing another fascinating dimension of Texas History.

And thank you for giving me an excuse to revisit the legacies of these designers of downtown.

To view some of the commissions of the architect Roy E. Lane, the work of architect Milton Scott or other prominent designers of old Waco housed at the Texas Collection, or to read newspaper and term papers about their lives and  accomplishments, visit the collection at The Carroll Library on campus. Google The Texas Collection at Baylor University to search or visit online. Please contact the archivist in advance so that any requested materials may be pulled and made available for your visit.

Thank you for listening to Treasures of The Texas Collection. Join us Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. on KWBU – FM. I am Mary Landon Darden.

Property of The Texas Collection at Baylor UniversityFinal Edit: January 9, 2010

__________________________________________________Terri Jo Ryan, Writer

__________________________________________________Dr. Mary Landon Darden, Executive Producer and Host

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__________________________________________________Pattie Orr, Vice President of Information Technology and Dean of

University Libraries

__________________________________________________John WilsonAssociate Director of The Texas Collection

__________________________________________________Dr. Thomas L. CharltonDirector of The Texas Collection