Monday, March 31, 2008

Sweetie Ladd's Historic Fort Worth: Mrs. Baird's Bread

The book "Sweetie Ladd's Historic Fort Worth" is still in print and can be easily located and bought. Sample pages from the book can also be located using Google Books, including the section on Mrs. Baird's Bread. A few excerpts are important and all are from page 48 of the book.

In describing the home on Hemphill, paragraph three reads, "When demand for her bread grew, Mrs. Baird moved her baking to a small one room house behind her home and installed a commercial oven that baked forty loaves at a time."

This would have dated the purchase of the oven to before 1910, however most accounts of this oven date it to 1915.

The fifth paragraph, begins, "In 1910, the Baird family moved to a house on the corner of Cactus and Jefferson." The street corner is obviously in error because there was no corner of Cactus and Jefferson. Cactus was renamed to Jefferson in 1924 and they are the same street. What was intended was the corner of Cactus and Washington.

Continuing, it says, "A small house in the rear was remodeled as a bakery with a brick peel oven." This is probably the small house that served as servant's quarters that other documents refer to.

The sixth paragraph goes on to read, "Mrs. Baird persuaded her landlord to build a wooden bakery building next door to the family's home. This building not only had a large brick oven but room up front for a retail store." This would have been the bakery at 1811 Washington.

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