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                                                      SNAPSHOTS  OF  KENEDY

Kenedy Hot Wells Sanatorium. The hot mineral artesian well was discovered in 1915 at the 2900 foot level, when the railroad company was drilling a water well to serve their locomotives. This well was located at the junction of the SAAP line (San Antonio to Aransas Pass) with the spur line (Runge, Cuero, Yoakum, Wallis and Houston).
The well was 100 yards east of Front Street and 50 yards south of the extension of Main Street. There was a large wooden hotel and six brick cottages. The therapy bathing facilities were inside the hotel. The business lasted only about 35 years.
The author does not know whether it was closed because the well ran out of pressure, or whether the citizens of Karnes County learned to shower at home, or whether people began to take Advil for arthritis.    


Main Street of Kenedy, looking west, taken from the railroad tracks on Front Street. Throughout the western United States, the street alongside the railroad tracks is called Front Street or First Street. Automobiles of the 1930's are seen here. I just love those whitewall tires.
The drug store, Holchak Cleaning & Pressing, Mendlovitz Department Store (later Raymer's, then Liebermann's), Archer-Gilley Barber Shop (later Killingsworth-Linder), the meat market, Ferguson's Five & Dime, Day Brothers Drug Store, and First Nichols National Bank are on the left in the first block of Main Street. The office of Dr. J. B. Seay, the only dentist and also the school board president, is upstairs over the drug store on the left.
To the left and out of sight behind you is the passenger depot. The pre-1938 Kenedy Post Office is to the left, half a block south, next door to the pool hall, both being beyond camera range. To the right, out of sight, are the cheese factory and the Railway Express Office, managed by Mr. Jim Grant.
Directly behind the camera is the Kenedy Hot Wells Sanitarium and the low-rent district, on "the other side of the tracks."
It was common practice to make a U-turn on Main St. Automobile traffic driving east, heading toward you near the drug store on the left, was welcome to swing in a huge turn, and almost reach the railroad tracks, and continue the sweeping turn near the CocaCola sign on the Beanery Cafe on the right, proceeding on their way back to the west, toward the auto parts store, Tudzin's, the Piggly Wiggly grocery, the Gulf Station, Ted Rankin's Confectionery, Elbert Bain's hardware, Evans Bain's grocery, the Dudley-LeBleu barber shop, the Kenedy Lumber Yard, and Kauffmann's Chevrolet dealership.
    


The three-story Goff Hotel was on Main Street at Third, and was well-known throughout South Texas. It was only two (very long) blocks west of the railroad tracks on Front Street.
At times, hotel employes would meet the passengers at the train with a big baggage cart. But otherwise, salesman called "drummers" lugged their suitcases called "valises" and their heavy sample cases to the hotel or to the Ammons Boarding House, across Main Street from the hotel.

The Kenedy City Hall and Library now occupy the hotel site.   Stimson Furniture is out of sight on the right, on the former location of the boarding house.   The author was born in 1926 on the property of the 1937 Rialto Theater, next door to Grandmother's Ammons Boarding House (Stimson Furniture).


    
Ammons Boarding House on Main Street, across from the Goff Hotel. The kitchen help would wring the necks off chickens in the back yard. The lifeless bodies flopped for a long time, scattering blood all around. An iron wash pot of boiling water was ready to help take the feathers off. Fried chicken was a regular staple.
Salesmen, drummers, roomers, and townspeople ate hugely at the big dining room table. Some renters lived there full time. It was breakfast, dinner, and supper. In an agricultural society, dinner is the big meal of the day and is at twelve noon. There is no such thing as "lunch."     


Kenedy Post Office, dedicated in 1937. This building was a really big deal, since the previous facility was a shoe-box of a space next to the pool hall on Front Street. Is that Blockie Alexander's 1939 Ford ? This is the first year model, I think, that had no running boards.

    


Kenedy High School, 1920, on Fourth Street at School Street. The south end is boldly labeled "Girls," and the north end is engraved "Boys." The combination auditorium-gymnasium was added to the north end about 1936.
On the west side of the new stage, there was a dim dark dank basement dressing room for girls. On the east side of the stage, there was a dim dark dank basement dressing room for the football team.
There was a huge square made of 2 x 4's and strong angle brackets, and supplied with an abundance of hooks. It was hoisted by ropes above the east end of the stage by Football Manager Evert Baccus.
Sweaty jerseys, sweaty shoulder pads, sweaty football pants, sweaty socks and wet towels were then directly over the heads of the band's trombone section. Football-player Jim Holston and future-Postmaster Thomas Buddy Baker played trombone.
Jim's sister Mary Holston married football coach Carl Bage.
Supt. John Stamper and Principal Robert E. Stafford are well remembered. With offices, library-study-hall, and rest rooms all being downstairs, there were only three classrooms on the first floor. In 1943, the enrollment was 145, and we graduated 39 at this mid-year of the war.
The Fighting Kenedy Lions football field is immediately behind the building, to the east. Between the gym building and the football field, there was not much room. There was first the running track, and then immediately came two small wooden bleachers, and the football field was only a few feet beyond these bleachers.
We stepped out of the gym directly onto the track. You had to be careful. Track shoes had sharp spikes.
Coach Carl Bage and line coach Sam Hudspeth took us to District Championships in 1940 over Victoria, and again in 1941 over Cuero.
We did not do well at all in 1942 under Coach Tommy Marshall, because by that time linemen Jack Colvin, H. J. Kolinek, Preston Parsons, Charles Craddock, and Charles Little had graduated, as well as our "Earl Campbell" of 1940 and 1941, Curley Lopez, the crashing fullback of our single-wing formation.
    

                                                                  High School students went out to the farms in the spring of 1942,
                                                                     and loaded old steel plows and harrows onto trucks, for the war effort.

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Monday, 24-Sep-2007 10:14:59 MDT