The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 98, Ed. 1 Monday, February 22, 1999 Page: 4 of 12
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PAT ON THE BACK
Rage 4-A ♦ Monday, February 22,1999
tPje paptotott ^>un
The Baytown Sun is published Monday through Friday and Sunday at
1301 Memorial Drive in Baytown.
Gary Dobbs Edwin Henry
Editor and Publisher Managing Editor
Let the healing begin
Ffc aytown businessman Wade Sinclair said it best immediately in the wake
■C of a jury verdict allowing him to build a car wash in the Country Club
mJf Oaks subdivision.
“Now healing can come to the neighborhood,” Sinclair said after the verdict
came in.
Indeed.
The controversy surrounding Sinclair’s proposed car wash pitted friends
against each other; highly-motivated taxpayers against their city hall and had the
potential for creating an enormous rift in the community.
Fortunately, it never got ugly.
All parties involved conducted themselves with grace, professionalism and
reserve. This was a fight that never—publicly at least — got personal.
There were no below-the-belt punches landed; no cheap shots taken.
Disputes are never desirable, but they are unavoidable in a society that has
people with different ideas living in such close quarters to each other.
If those disputes must be addressed, we hope they can all be handled in a civil
and mature manner as this one.
Sun Files
From the Sun files, here are the headlines from...
10 years ago:
25 years ago:
50 years ago:
Bay Theater Manager Rufus-Honeycutt announced plans for an essay contest
on “What Can Be Done to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency.”
Mrs. C.L. Fowler headed the newly formed Highlands Park Improvements
Council.
Today in histoiy
Today is Monday, Feb. 22, the 53nd day of 1999. There are 312 days left in the
year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 22,1732, the first U.S. president, George Washington, was bom at his
parents’ plantation in the Virginia Colony.
On this date:
In 1784, a U.S. merchant ship, the “Empress of China,” left New York City for
the Far East.
In 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States.
In 1865, Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.
In 1889, President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and
Washington state to the Union.
In 1879, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, N.Y.
In 1889, President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and
Washington state to the Union. # >
In 1892, “Lady Windermere’s Fan” by Oscar Wilde was first performed, at
London’s St. James’s Theater.
In 1924, Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from
the White House.
— The Associated Press
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Thought for today
“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise
than polish.”
—Anne Bradstreet, American poet (1612-1672).
The poem distributed to second graders in the Huffman School District was
banned after a mother complained that it exposed youth to suicide. The poem
was “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony,” by Shel Silverstein.
Ginny Sheiman, 9, was reunited with her stolen, award-winning calf just 10
hours before the deadline to enter to show in the Houston Livestock Show and
Rodeo.
The city of Baytown was using a dump site located off Highway 90 bcause of
the closing of the Coady Landfill site. Transporting garbage to the private site
was costing the city $200 per normal load of 400 cubic yards and required an
additional 40 man hours.
Bible verse
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Galatians 5:26
... to Chester Smith for devoting his efforts toward preserving the nat-
ural habitat for wildlife.
FEEDBACK: To comment on this page, write us at PO. Box 90, Baytown, TX
77522 or email us at baytownsun @aol.com.
What pictures to use for new calendar
If you, the average citizen, were asked
to assist in making a calendar for the year
2000 that would consist of historical pho-
tographs of the area over the past 80
years or so, which pictures would you
select? Spewing oil wells? The sprawling
Humble/ Exxon complex? Old movie
theaters and other buildings? Churches?
What?
Well, that’s the problem a group within
the Bay Area Heritage Society of Bay-
town is now trying to solve. A committee
of about six people, appointed to oversee
the restoration of the Brown-McKay
House located at the Republic of Texas
Plaza on North Main, is looking at ways
to generate money for needed repairs and
improvements to the old building. The
calendar is one suggestion.
The home was built in 1908 on Scotts
Bay by Walter Brown, youngest son of
Junius Brown, one of the early settlers of
the Wooster Community and who donat-
ed the original land for the Wooster
School.
That restored one-room schoolhouse is
also at the Plaza and is operated by the
Heritage Society. Third graders in the
Goose Creek School District visit the
Plaza throughout the year to observe
turn-of-the-century education, that is,
1900 education.
When renovations are completed on
the Brown-McKay House, it, along with
the Wooster School, will serve as a living
museum to show what it was like to live
in the area before the discovery of oil. We
still had an agrarian economy where the
early citizens farmed, fished, and raised
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
cattle.
But, back to the calendar and the selec-
tion of pictures. There will be 14 photos,
one for each month and one each for the
front and back of the calendar.
How should they be distributed,
though, so that all the parts of Baytown
are represented?
Perhaps, four from old Baytown, four
from old Pelly, and four from old Goose
Creek and one each from Wooster and
Cedar Bayou?
Fine, but which four from each of the
old Tri-Cities and surrounding communi-
ties? From what time period? Before or
after consolidation?
Also, do we use pictures already used
before in other calendars, in special
issues of The Baytown Sun, and in histo-
ries of Baytown? There’s been three his-
tories, you know?
Dr. Margaret Swett Henson wrote The
History of Baytown in 1986, The Sun
had Pictorial History of the Baytown
Area published in 1995, and I wrote The
Making of A City: Baytown, Texas 1948-
1998 in 1997. All three books were filled
with historical photos, with some of the
popular ones used in all the books and in
other places. The obvious question —
can we find never-before used photos?
I have been asked by the Brown-
McKay House Committee for my sug-
gestions, which I’m pleased to provide
for whatever they’re worth.
First, the front photo should be one
showing the Republic of Texas Plaza
with the two buildings and the statue of
Dr. Ashbel Smith.
Second, a snow scene in front of the
old Humble Community House taken in
the winter of 1949.
Then, the Brunson Theater during its
heyday, and maybe the Decker Drive-In
Theater, one of the local drive-in restau-
rants like Brown’s, the Roseland Park
swimming pool, an Humble Day crowd,
and, of course, the filming of the movie
“Hellfighters.”
I also have several aerial photos in
mind, notably of the Fred Hartman
Bridge. Then, we can go from there.
Any suggestions and actual photos
from you, the readers, are encouraged.
Just pass them on to me in care of The
Sun and I’ll pass them on to the commit-
tee.
With any photo, please provide identi-
fication,where the picture was taken,
when, and who’s in it so that a proper
caption can be written. I will certainly
appreciate it since I’ll be writing the cap-
tions.
Buck Young lives in Baytown and is a
local historian.
I cannot support bond issue
An open letter to the
Goose Creek I.S.D. Board
members:
I, for one, cannot support
the $120,000,000 upcoming
bond issues.
I can support a new Cedar
Bayou Junior School.
I can support a new Carv-
er Elementary.
I cannot support another
$19,000,000 Band-Aid for
Robert E. Lee nor another
$20,000,000 Band-Aid for
Sterling.
I truly hope the trustees
will give the voters a
choice, letting us decide
how much and where we
want to spend our tax dol-
lars, rather than giving us an
ultimatum and making us
vote for all or none on the
Bond ballot.
Send iis a letter
The Baytown Sun welcomes
letters of up to 300 words and
guest columns of up to 500 words
on any item of public interest.
Guest columns should include a
photograph of the writer.
Please send signed letters to:
Gary Dobbs or Edwin Henry, The
Baytown Sun, P.O. Box 90, Bay-
to^Tx. 77522. Or, fax them to:
Jay M. Eshbach, II f a
Baytown
us at
Texas Officials
Governor
George W. Bush (R-2002)
State Capitol, P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711
800-843-5789
Lieutenant Governor
Rick Perry (R-2002)
State Capitol,
Austin, Texas 78711
800-441-0373 *
oEWf£TF?
Attorney General
John Comyn (R-2002)
800-337-3928
Comptroller of Public Accounts
Carole Keeton Rylander (R-2002)
800-531-5441
Land Commissioner
David Dewhurst (R-2002)
512-236-9798
Commissioner of Agriculture
Susan Combs (R-2002)
512-463-7435
Railroad Commissioners
Charles Matthews (R-2000)
Michael Williams (R-2002)
Tony Garza (R-2004)
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Dobbs, Gary. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 98, Ed. 1 Monday, February 22, 1999, newspaper, February 22, 1999; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1020560/m1/4/: accessed July 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.