It’s time for another browse through Fort Worth newspapers of yesteryear.
By the time this ad ran in 1883, the buffalo had been hunted almost to extinction; only a few hundred remained. Buffalo bones were used to make, among other products, fertilizer.
In 1903 you could grow hair like this by buying a bottle of Danderine at Hugh T. Pangburn’s drugstore at Ninth and Houston. Yes, he was the Pangburn. In 1914 he would mix up a batch of pecans, caramel, milk chocolate, and honey in the kitchen of the drugstore. The result: Pangburn’s Millionaires candy.
This Washer Bros. ad is from 1895. Five years later “Full Dinner Pail” would be a re-election campaign slogan of President William McKinley to appeal to the labor vote.
During the 1890s the Fort Worth Gazette ran this “wed and dead” column.
These were Cowtown debutantes of 1896. Olive H. Edrington was daughter of Henry Clay Edrington, a founder of Traders National Bank and first president of Lone Star Gas. The family name lives on at William Edrington Scott Theater. Alma Loving Turner was daughter of Mrs. Ida Turner, postmistress of Fort Worth. Clara Rose Whitla was described as a “prominent society belle” active in the Episcopal church. Bessie Evangeline Lyle was described as a “pronounced brunette” who “belongs to several dancing and whist clubs of the city.” Irma Louise Fosdick was daughter of Edwin E. Fosdick, who sold insurance, was president of the Texas Railway company, and bought the land where today lies the East Side’s Oakland Park to build his Inverness country club. The country club failed, but the park’s lake bears his name.
I almost posted, wouldn’t it be great if the candy grew hair. I read it and deleted it, had a good laugh and put it back.
I love this blog.
Thanks, Mellinda.