Mrs Baird's Home

Pages 12 - 16 of The Mrs Bairds Story

2009-01-27T18:51:00.045-06:00

This post contains the last five pages of The Mrs Baird's Story, and wraps up the transcription of the document except the photo captions. Again, the original Mrs Baird's Story post has been updated to contain the new material.

...

From 1919 to 1928, the new bakery was enlarged nine times. This was one addition each year. Competitors in the Fort Worth market were Reich's B & B (Biggest and Best), Walker's Big Dandy Bread, and Doherty's Butter Krust.

About 1920, the family induced Mrs. Baird to quit working in the bakery. They thought she had worked long enough. The family built a two-story home on the corner of Scott and Beach Streets. Mrs. Baird moved there and quit working in the retail sales room. Later she moved to 2429 Rogers Road. She continued as active head of the business until her death in 1961.

With the bakery at 6th Avenue and Terrell doing well, Roland suggested expanding to Dallas. Mrs. Baird could have said, "Let's just stay the size we are." The business could really be hurt if the expansion failed. "But she never batted an eye," Hoyt Baird recalls. She gave her approval for that expansion to Dallas and for the others that followed.

This willingness to take on new challenges was, he feels, the most important single factor in the growth and success of the business. It was this readiness to move ahead that helped to eventually create more than 2,500 jobs and make Mrs. Baird's the outstanding organization it is today.

Family Supervision

As the Dallas plant was being planned, the family adopted a concept that would prove wise in the years ahead. A member of the Baird family would head the new plant for the family. He would represent the family, supervise each day's bake, and assume personal responsibility for the quality and freshness of the products that would bear the family's name. This concept of family supervision was a logical development. Since the very beginning, Mrs. Baird and her family had been closely involved in business. When they did all the baking and delivery, they had guarded quality and freshness as though their very future depended on it - and it did. When they hired people to help them with the baking and delivery, the family continued to be closely involved and personally responsible for the products they baked. In their growth, family supervision had been a way of life. Now, as they contemplated new frontiers, it would continue to be.

The Dallas plant opened in 1928, with son Roland Baird heading up the plant for the Baird family. In 1938, a plant was opened in Houston with Dewey heading the plant for the family and B.J. Barr as General Manager. Later Mr. Barr became a Vice President and member of the Board of Directors. That same year the Fort Worth operation moved into a new bread plant on Summit. The plant at Sixth and Terrell was now devoted exclusively to cakes. Hoyt Baird now headed the Fort Worth bread plant for the Baird family, with A. D. Gillespie, Sr. as General Manager. C. B. Baird headed the Cake plant with Dudley Johnson as General Manager.

During these years of growth for Mrs. Baird's, changes were also taking place in the way the products they were baked were being marketed. In the early 20's, wrapping was introduced for bread. The first wrapping machines were semi-automatic, with the operator doing part of the folding. Sliced bread was introduced in 1927. In November 1936, Mrs. Baird's began hand-twisting bread. This procedure, in which two half-loaf pieces of dough were intertwined to form one dough piece, continues today at all Mrs. Baird's plants. Twisting improves flavor, texture, and keeping qualities of the loaf.

In 1949, a new plant was built in Abilene. William D. (Bill) Baird headed the plant for the Baird family with A. D. Gillespie, Sr., as General Manager.

Plans were also underway to build a new plant in Dallas to match that growing market. In 1950, the continuous mix process was introduced to the baking industry. It offered a short cut in production time and a considerable saving in cost. The planners of the new Dallas plant carefully considered the revolutionary new process and decided to stay with the yeast-raised baking method they had used since the business began. They felt the consumer would prefer bread baked the yeast-raised way. They have never regretted the decision.

In 1953, Mrs. Baird's of Dallas moved into a huge new plant recognized by the industry as the nation's largest automatic bread plant.

Roland Baird, who helped his mother and older brother Dewey with baking and later headed the Dallas plant for the family, retired in 1954.

The business expanded again in 1959. Bakeries were purchased in Lubbock and Victoria and, early the next year, bakeries were also acquired in Austin and Waco. In 1969, a pie plant was purchased in Abilene.

But while the passing years brought growth, they also brought sadness. Mrs. Baird died June 3, 1961 after a long, eventful, and certainly gratifying life. She had often said she was far prouder that her children had grown up to be good citizens than she was of the fact that she had founded a successful business. At her funeral, the officiating minister described Mrs. Baird as "an ideal woman in the eyes of God." He said Mrs. Baird had fulfilled the highest traditions of American life but, in all the fullness of her work, she had always been a devoted mother and family woman. In Mrs. Baird's memory, the Texas Senate passed Senate Resolution No. 13. In the Resolution, the Senate said that Mrs. Baird has been "a living example for mothers, wives, business executives, Christians and good people the world over." Copies of the Resolution were sent to her family with deep regard of the Texas Senate.

Dewey Baird died March 25, 1965. Dewey was the oldest son and had been active in the business from the very beginning. He had been his mother's first assistant and, during the years, had gone on to become President and eventually Chairman of the Board.

C. B. Baird, Mrs. Baird's youngest son, died May 27, 1969. When the business started, C. B. had been only 5. But he soon took an active part in the young business, became an officer and member of the Board of Directors and, until his death, headed the Fort Worth Cake Plant for the Baird family.

Others who played vital roles in the growth of the business are also gone. Charlie Longguth, the iceman who became the Company's first route salesman, died in 1956. C. C. Gressett, who joined the company as a bookkeeper in 1924 and rose to Vice President and General Manager of the Dallas Plant, also a member of the Board of Directors, died in 1962. A. D. "Tiny" Gillespie, Sr., who joined the Company as a relief driver and later managed two bakeries, died in 1967. He had risen to Vice President and member of the Board of Directors. Dudley Johnson, who was the Cake Plant's first general manager and whose career spanned from route salesman to Vice President and member of the Board of Directors, died in late 1967.

B. J. Barr, who played a major role in establishing Mrs. Baird's products in the Houston market, died in 1975 after a long and colorful career in the baking industry. He joined Mrs. Baird's in 1938 and went to Houston as General Manager. He was later named Vice President and General Manager of the Houston plant. In 1957 he was named Executive Vice President. He retired in 1959 but continued as a member of the Board of Directors until his death.

Lillian Hughes started as a cashier in July, 1925 and during the ensuing years saw the organization grow from one plant to eleven. "All through the years," she said, "I learned one very important thing. Any employee who enjoys his or her work and does it well can expect advancement. The opportunity is there for everyone." When she retired on July 31, 1975 - the first employee to log 50 years of continuous service - Mrs. Hughes held the top level position of Corporate Secretary of Mrs Baird's Bakeries Inc.

William D. Baird, Chairman of the Board and grandson of the founder, died in 1976. When Bill was born the family business was housed in a two-room wooden building at 1811 Washington. He started working in the bakery as soon as his parents would let him, later supervised design and construction of bread plants at Fort Worth, Abilene, and Dallas, and for many years headed production for all Mrs. Baird's plants. There were and are many others in every area of the business, who have made lasting contributions to Mrs Baird's Bakeries.

In February 1970, Mrs. Baird's announced another expansion. Land was purchased for a new Cake Plant. The site was a 30-acre tract in South Fort Worth on Interstate 35, ideally suited for statewide distribution. Ground was broken September 28, 1970. The plant was completed in 1971 and production began early in 1972. The former Cake Plant at 6th Avenue and Terrell was closed in September, 1972, and all production moved to the new Cake Plant. In May, 1976, a bread plant was acquired in San Antonio, bring the total number of plants to 11.

As Mrs Baird's Bakeries moves toward the 80's, the same ingredients that brought the organization this far are still at work. It is still a family-owned business with W. Hoyt Baird as Chairman of the Executive Committee. Vernon Baird is President, Allen Baird is Executive Vice President, Clayton Baird is Senior Vice President, and Carroll Baird is Vice President of Operations. Three grandsons, Bob Baird, Bryon Baird, and Arthur Baird, and one great granson, Scott Baird, also hold top level positions. There is still the dedication and respect for baking a good product that Mrs. Baird instilled in her family at 512 Hemphill and 1811 Washington. The business that started in a home kitchen has grown until more than 2,500 families have joined the family that started it all. W. Hoyt Baird evaluates the contribution of this ever-growing team of employees this way: "There is no way this business could have succeeded without the cooperation and dedication of our employees. The secret of success in any business is people, and we have had - and still have - the very best!"

This, then, is the story of Mrs. Baird's until the present. But time does not stand still, and neither will this business. This Company's history has been a story of vitality, of teamwork, of growth, and of progress. Its future will be the same.

- end -

Pages 8 - 11 of The Mrs Baird's Story

2009-01-25T20:37:00.003-06:00

Continuing the transcription with pages 8 through 11, I've posted the new material here and once again updated the original Mrs Baird's Story post.

Pages 8 and 9 contain a large image of the Bud Briggs painting of the Baird home at 512 Hemphill. The text continues on page 10.

...

While they were chatting and deciding what they wanted to buy, the horse would most likely be sampling a customer's lawn. "Sampling" meant grabbing a mouthful of grass and pulling it out by the roots. If the conversation at the back of the wagon lasted too long, Ned the horse might step up on the lawn with both front feet for a better go at the grass. Lawn owners didn't like this. A housewife, at the back of the wagon, would suddenly yell, "Get that horse of my lawn!"

When a group of customers had been served, the driver would quickly close the wagon's rear doors. The moment Ned heard the doors close, he took off. He was on his way to the next customer, and some greener grass in the next block. Ned knew all the stops. He would stride down the street and, when he came to a customer's house, wouild stop abruptly. There were times when Hoyt would be off the route for a day or two. When he returned, Ned might suddenly stop in front of a strange house. Sometimes it took a lot of urging to get Ned to move on. Later, Hoyt would learn the house was a new stop added while he was gone.

As Hoyt drove his wagon along the sales route, he often saw Bruno Reich, who operated a wholesale bakery route, serving stores with a truck. He could not help envying Bruno and longed for the day when he could have a truck for his route. That day came sooner than he expected.

In 1917, the family bought a Ford car. They had a panel body built for it, took off the passenger seats, and bolted the panel body in place to make a panel truck. The truck was painted a cream color and "Eat More Mrs. Baird's Bread" was lettered on each side. About this time the Bairds took on three wholesale accounts. These were the Telephone Exchange at Rosedale and Jennings, which bought only pies; the Telephone Exchange at Lamar and 10th, which also bought pies; and the Sandegard Grocery at 10th and Houston.

Sandegard's was a large store that also had a delicatessen. The delicatessen served sandwiches and lunches. At first the store took only cakes, and built a special case for these. The store was served daily, with delivery twice on Saturday. Later bread was added. It was displayed on top of the cake display case. People would often stop Hoyt when he came in with a basket of bread and take the freshly baked loaves out of the basket before he could put it on top of the display case. No one back at the little bakery realized, as the first grocery store was added to the sales route, that this was a most significant event. For it was with the grocer and his customers, not house to house, that the organization's future would lie.

Wholesale Begins

In September of 1918, Hoyt entered the army and the sales route had no driver. The family decided to discontinue the retail route and go wholesale. Dewey hired the bakery's iceman, Charlie Longguth, to operate the new wholesale route. Longguth was to remain the bakery's No. 1 route salesman for many years. (He retired in 1951.)

By this time Sandegard's had 15 or more small stores and had become a sizable local chain. Apparently Manager Harry Adams had been impressed with the way folks in his first store liked Mrs. Baird's Bread. He put Mrs. Baird's Bread in all Sandegard stores. This took amost all the bread the little Washington Street bakery could bake. But not for long.

In early 1919, the family bought a lot at Sixth Avenue and Terrell from a Mr. Casey, who operated a drug store across the street. They built a brick building on the lot. It was the first bakery they had built themselves and they were justly proud of it. The building was 30 feet wide and 72 feet long. The family installed a Peterson Peel gas-fired oven. The oven had a capacity of 400 one-pound loaves. They also purchased a hand wrapping machine.

Total investment for the 6th Avenue and Terrell bakery was $8,800.00. The oven cost about $3,500.00. It was purchased on credit from the Peterson Oven Company.

In June 1919, the bakery began operating in the new building. The business continued to grow. The family bought a second truck, also a Ford, and put on a second sales route.

Shorty after, two routes increased to four, and Fort Worth distribution looked like this:

Route No. 1 - Charlie Longguth, serving the South side.
Route No. 2 - Ben Dollins, who operated the downtown restaurant route.
Route No. 3 - Howard Townsend, whose route reached from Rail Road Avenue to Magnolia on the South side.
Route No. 4 - Arlie Whitley, who served the North side.

These four routes covered all of Fort Worth except for the East side. Route No. 5 was later added to serve the East side, which included Polytechnic area. Claude Leath was hired as salesman for this new route.

Page 1 of the Mrs Baird's Story

2009-01-25T19:56:00.002-06:00

This a transcription of page 1 of the Mrs Baird's Story. I've also updated the original Mrs Baird's Story post with page one.

The Mrs Baird's Story

They came to Texas in a chair car and brought Fort Worth its first steam popcorn machine. The story of the Baird family and the baking business they started.

In 1901 William Allen Baird, then a young man of 33, came to Texas to "look around" and see what kind of opportunities the Lone Star State might hold. Back in Tennessee he and wis wife Ninnie had operated a bakery and restaurant at Trenton and later a bakery at Covington. He liked what he saw in Fort Worth, decided to introduce the first steam popcorn machine in the city, and called his wife in Tennessee and told her to bring the family.

The family boarded the train for Texas in May, 1901. The steam popcorn machine had cost $425, so the family rode in the chair car section. Mr. Baird and his wife Ninnie had four children then. They were Bess, 11; Dewey, 9; Hoyt, 4; and Roland, 1.

Arriving in Fort Worth, the family moved into rented quarters on East Belknap. Mr. Baird set up his steam popcorn machine at the corner of 7th and Main in downtown Fort Worth. Painted bright red and fitted with lots of brass, the popcorn machine had a clown and a steam whistle on top. It was quite an attraction. Eight months later, Mr. Baird bought a second machine and put it at 5th and Main. Dewey, the oldest son, operated this machine.

A restaurant on Exchange Avenue was put up for sale. Mr. Baird, who had operated restaurants in Tennessee, con-

Cochran Renamed to West Tucker

2009-01-23T20:37:00.004-06:00

According to the Sanborn Fire Maps, in Fort Worth, Texas, Cochran was renamed to West Tucker. I researched this because the publication The Mrs. Baird's Story says, on page 3 of the publication.

The family now lived at 512 Hemphill, on the corner of Hemphill and Cochran.

The address of 512 Hemphill today is still in the same place. I just wanted to verify the renaming of the street.

Ninnie Baird Becomes an Orphan

2009-01-23T20:30:00.000-06:00

Ninnie Baird's father, Elisha Harrison was killed in May of 1882 leaving her an orphan, her mother having passed away in 1874. I received a newspaper article that details the story of the killing.

From an unknown newspaper, dated May 6, 1882.

Shot Dead in the Road.

Last Monday evening, three miles north of Trenton, Elisha Harrison was found dead in the Trenton and Dyer Station road, about 7 o'clock, with a pistol shot wound in the left side. A coroner's jury was summoned, Esq. H. C. Pearce presiding, and the following state of facts was developed: Elisha Harrison had been postmaster at Dyer Station for some years past and up to last winter and fall, when he ws removed. He had made threats before the day of the killing against all concerned in having him removed, and on that day said in Trenton that he intended "cursing out the whole set," and mentioned the name of H. J. Marcum as one of those he intended cursing out. Late in the evening, Harrison left town on horseback and is supposed to have stopped on the road where the killing took place and he hitched his horse and then went to meet Marcum as he came up. and he was found about fifty yards from his horse, back towards Trenton, and his hat was found midway between his horse and his body. Harrison was found with an open knife in his pocket with the point down. Suspicion pointed at once to Marcum. He left Trenton with some plow handles he had bought in town, was overtaken by a man named Kelly, who took him in his buggy until their roads separated, about half a mile from the place where Harrison was found dead. A gentleman living near the place of the killing heard some loud talking and soon afterwards, heard a pistol shot. He went down the road and saw a man he didn't know walking rapidly away with plow handles on his shoulder. Marcum has since given himself up, but we have not heard the result of the trail.

Concho Street Renamed to East Myrtle

2009-01-23T20:11:00.003-06:00

According to the Sanborn Fire Maps, Concho Street was renamed to East Myrtle in Fort Worth, Texas. Theodore A. Lipps, the first non-family employee of Mrs. Baird's Bread lived on that street. I've updated the post, The First Baird Employee with this information.

Pages 2 and 3 of The Mrs. Baird's Story

2009-01-23T19:22:00.000-06:00

I stumbled upon another researcher of the Baird family and was provided with pages two and three of The Mrs. Baird's Story. I've transcribed those pages here, and have added them to the original post of The Mrs. Baird's Story.

...
sidered going back in the restaurant business. He decided this one was a good buy. It might also be good business, he reasoned, to buy "run down" restaurants, fix them up, operate them, and then sell them. So he sold his popcorn machines and bought the restaurant. In those days of slow transportation, you had to live near the place you worked. So the family moved to Rosen Heights.

Santa Fe Restaurant

In 1903, Mr. Baird sold the Exchange Avenue restaurant and began operating the Santa Fe Restaurant across from the Santa Fe Depot. It was here, Dewey Baird often recalled, that as a boy of 12 he stood on a box to help his father make nickel pies. Then he and his father hauled the pies 8 or 10 miles in a lunch wagon to the Swift and Armour packing houses on Fort Worth's North Side. The family lived next door to the restaurant. Later that year, Mr. Baird sold the Santa Fe Restaurant and began operating a bakery on Jennings Avenue. The family moved to Daggett Street. The old Fort Worth (Central) High School was on the next block where the Justin Boot Company is now located.

With Mr. Baird now operating a bakery, his wife could take a short rest from her own baking chores. Usually she baked all the bread for her family and did it very well indeed. She had often helped her husband with the baking back in Tennessee. But now one of the boys could bring bread home each day from the bakery.

Her "vacation" from baking did not last long. The Little Chicago Restaurant, between 10th and 11th Streets, was put up for sale. Mr. Baird sold the bakery and bought the Little Chicago. The family moved to West Broadway. At the Little Chicago in 1904 you could get a full meal for 15 cents. Dewey helped his dad at the restaurant.

512 Hemphill

The First Baird Employee

2008-07-28T19:00:00.001-05:00

Mr. Lipps being the first driver for the Baird business is referenced in a few articles about Mrs Baird's Bread.

On the Mrs Baird's Bread website in the story "Meet Mrs. Baird", it refers to him as the company's first employee. The hiring of Mr. Lipps happens on or after 1915 in the inferred timeline.

The first company employee, Mr. Lipps, who was not a Baird family member, was hired to drive the wagon.

In the Star-Telegram in 2002 the article "Bread Firm Asks Texas, Oklahoma Route Drivers to Buy Their Sales Territories" states Mr. Lipps was hired in 1915.

Mrs Baird's announced Wednesday what could be the most radical change in the way it distributes bread since 1915, when deliveries got too much for the founder's four sons and the first nonrelative, a Mr. Lipps, was hired to drive the wagon and its horse, Ned.

Finally, the document "The Mrs Baird's Story" says

A Mr. Lipps was hired to drive the wagon. Whenever he was ill, 13-year-old Hoyt relieved him as driver. Later Hoyt became the regular driver.

Hoyt was born in October of 1896, and would have been 13 in 1909, when the document says he relieved Mr. Lipps as a driver This infers that Mr. Lipps was hired on or before 1909.

As I'm finding with a lot of Baird history, there's conflicting evidence yet again. Two articles, including the official Mrs Baird's Bread web site state Mr. Lipps started around 1915. Then an official document, "The Mrs Baird's Story" shows him starting on or before 1909. The city directories infer him being a driver on or before 1911, and definitely driving for the Bairds by 1914, leading one to believe the old document "The Mrs Baird's Story" was more correct.

Curiosity drove me to check the Fort Worth City Directories to see if I could turn him up. I found his name to be Theodore A. Lipps, and in 1911 he lived at 517 Hemphill, which would have been across the street and a couple of houses down from where the Baird's lived at 512 Hemphill a few years before. The 1911 directory lists him merely as a "driver", but by the 1914 directory, he's listed as a driver for Mr. N. L. Baird. He is shown as living on Concho Street, which was renamed East Myrtle Street. The house would have been near East Myrtle and Yuma today (Allen Street turns into Yuma a few blocks after you cross I35 today).

By 1916, there is no entry for Mr. Lipps, which is also when the city directory lists Hoyt as the driver for Mrs N L Baird.

1909-1910
Lipps Theodore A., r. 1502 E 2th 3.

1911
Lipps Theodore A., driver, r. 517 Hemphill. 4.

1912-1913
Lipps Theodore A., r. 1412 E Myrtle. 3. Ph. Rose-
dale 1960

1914
Lipps Theodore A., driver Mrs. N. L. Baird, res
1412 Concho

1916
No entry for Theodore Lipps

Bairds in the City Directories

2008-07-23T19:00:00.005-05:00

I finally made time to go through the Fort Worth City Directories to document the Baird names associated with the home at 1015 Cactus and the bakery at 1811 Washington. They are in five directories, 1911, 1912-1913, 1914, and 1916, and 1918. They are listed in the 1909-1910 directory as living at 512 Hemphill and the business is not listed under the Bakeries section.

Some interesting notes from this compilation are

The first time the bakery shows up in the business listings is 1911.
The bakery at 1811 Washington shows up in the 1914 directory, with the name of the bakery being "Mrs. Ninnie L. Baird".
Bessie Baird works at the E. E. Fosdick company, matching a section about Bessie in "The Mrs Baird's Story".
Deward Baird moved out of the house, two streets over and a block south by 1916.
W. Hoyt Baird was a clerk at the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway.
A "Norman Baird" shows up in the 1916 directory.
By 1916, W. Hoyt Baird quits his job at the railway and becomes a driver for the bakery.
The name of the bakery in 1916 and 1918 appears to be "Mrs N L Baird".

1911
Baird Bessie Miss, steganographer, E. E. Fosdick & Co.,
h. 1015 Cactus
Baird Deward, hlpr, h. 1015 Cactus
Baird Ninnie (Mrs. W. A.), bakery, 1015 Cactus, r.
same, Ph. Rosedale 1511
Baird William A., r. 1015 Cactus. 8

Business Section

Bakeries

Baird Ninnie Mrs., 1015 Cactus

1912-1913
Baird Bessie O. Miss, steganographer, E. E. Fosdick &
    Co., h. 1015 Cactus.
Baird Deward C., baker, h. 1015 Cactus.
Baird Hoyt, clk, Ft. W. & D. C., h. 1015 Cactus
Baird Ninnie (wid. W. A.), bakery, 1015 Cactus, r.
    same, Ph. Rosedale 1511

1914
Baird Bessie O. Miss, steno E. E. Fosdick & Co.,
    bds 1015 Cactus.
Baird Deward C., baker Mrs. Ninnie L. Baird,
    res 1015 Cactus
Baird Ninnie L. (wid Wm. A.), baker, 1811
    Washington, res 1015 Cactus.
Baird W. Hoyt, clk Ft. W. & D. C. Ry, bds 1015
    Cactus

Business Section
Bakers
Baird Ninnie L., 1015 Cactus

1916
Baird
" Deward C. baker Mrs N L Baird, res
    1917 S Henderson
" Ninnie L. (wid Wm A), bakery 1811
    Washington av, res 1015 Cactus
" Norman, baker, bds 1015 Cactus
" Roland, baker Mrs N L Baird, bds 1015
    Cactus
" W Hoyt, driver Mrs N L Baird, bds 1015
    Cactus

Business Section
Bakers
Baird Ninnie L. Mrs. 1811 Washington

1918
Baird
" Deward C, baker Mrs N L Baird, res
    1106 W Bois d'Arc
" Ninnie L (wid Wm A), bakery 1811
    Washington, res 1015 Cactus
" Roland, baker h 1015 Cactus
" W Hoyt, driver h 1015 Cactus

Business Section
Bakers
Baird N. L. Mrs. 1811 Washington

George W. Blue's Plastering Business

2008-07-20T19:00:00.001-05:00

George W. Blue ran a plastering business from his home and office at 1015 Cactus in Fort Worth from about 1901 until perhaps has late as 1906 when the Blue family moved out.

These two ads are from the classified section of The Dallas Morning News. I don't have a publication date, but I suspect it may have been around 1903, give or take a couple of years.

The ads read:

WANTED - Ten union plasterers, three months' work. Apply 1015 Cactus-st. Fort Worth. GEO. BLUE.

and

WANTED - Two plasterers at once. union or non-union. Apply or address GEORGE BLUE, 1015 Cactus-st., Fort Worth, Tex.

Read more about George W. Blue on these posts:

Fort Worth Society: Bessie Baird

2008-07-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

Published in The Dallas Morning News on February 16, 1913, Page One, Page 10.

Fort Worth Society

...

The Jinx Club met Tuesday afternoon with Miss Bessie Baird of Cactus street. Refreshments were served the following guests: Misses Beatrice Allen, Bessie Baird, Myrtle Edsall, Pearl Smith, Hattie Voight, Estelle Pfantz, Kate Harrison, Fay and Ray Nance, Messrs B. F. Brewer, Henry Marsh, J. R. Griffin, C. K. Bullard, Eugene Ward, M. M. Slagle, Hoyt Baird, Atkin Harris.

Miss Ray Nance will be next hostess.

...

Mrs. Baird, Founder of Bakery, Dies at 92

2008-07-17T23:30:00.001-05:00

Published in The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, June 4, 1961, Page 16, Section 1.

Mrs. Baird, Founder of Bakery, Dies at 92

Mrs. Ninnie L. Baird, 92, from whose modest kitchen of 1908 grew the nation's largest independent baking company - Mrs. Baird's Bakeries, Inc. - died Saturday morning in a Fort Worth hospital after a long illness

Mrs. Baird, a resident of Fort Worth since 1901, opened her first commercial bakery in Fort Worth in 1908, when she organized her "brood" into bakers, businessmen, and route men. Today, her bakeries are sprinkled throughout Texas, including Dallas, Houston, Abilene, Victoria, Lubbock, Waco, Austin and Fort Worth.

Born May 23, 1869, near Trenton, Tenn., she was orphaned while a young girl and reared by an aunt who taught her a unique skill - how to bake a loaf of bread people would pay money for.

The skill remained latent until the age of 17, when she married W. A. Baird and moved to Fort Worth.

Here, she baked all the family's bread. The oversupply she gave to neighbors. The neighbors liked it and asked if they could buy it from her regularly.

Mr. Baird became too ill to work in those days, but requests for bread continued. It was then that Mrs. Baird, to support the family, organized her home into a bakery.

Her eldest son, Deward, 16, became first assistant baker to his mother, and the three younger boys, Hoyt, Roland and C. B., became the "route men" - they delivered their first loaves piping hot in baskets.

The family's daughters kept the household running.

The customers named the bread by requesting "Mrs. Baird's Bread, please."

In 1912, Mr. Baird died.

"If we're going to get along, we've got to bake more," the young widow said, then purchased a second-hand wood-burning commercial oven. The bakery was in big business with an oven capacity for 40 loaves.

She didn't have enough cash for the oven's price, $75, so she paid $25 cash and the rest in bread and rolls.

From the beginning, the bread firm grew under the management and direction of Mrs. Baird. A horse and delivery wagon were purchased to peddle the bread which came from a small wooden building in the back yard of the Baird home on Fort Worth's Washington Street.

By World War I, demand sparked the firm's moving to a large bakery. The bread was then sold through the grocery stores for the first time.

Today, the firm is still a family operation, with sons and grandsons managing the business operation and supervising the baking.

Surviving are four sons, Deward C. Baird of Houston, W. Hoyt Baird of Fort Worth, Roland W. Baird of Dallas, and C. B. Baird of Fort Worth; three daughters, Mrs. A. H. Beitman, Mrs. E. C. Cummins and Mrs. Edd Hyde, all of Fort Worth; two sisters, Mrs. Curtis Sargent of San Francisco and Mrs. E. M. Townsend of Parsons, Tenn.; 23 grandchildren; 48 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Monday in University Baptist Church, 2221 Wabash in Fort Worth, with burial in the Greenwood Cemetery.

Pallbearers will be her grandsons, William D. Biard, Vernon Baird, C. B. Baird Jr., R. W. Baird Jr., Clay Cummins, and Baird Tripp.

Bairds at 1015 Cactus on a State Document

2008-07-17T22:00:00.001-05:00

It's been a busy week of discoveries about the Cactus home. After a couple of months of back and forth emails, I finally obtained an official Texas state document showing the address of the Bairds at 1015 Cactus in 1911. It's probably the most official document that we've found so far and it brings the total number of documents showing this to be the Baird home to six. The list includes this state document, several Fort Worth City Directories, two Star-Telegram articles, a reference in the book, Sweetie Ladd's Historic Fort Worth, and "Page 6" from "The Mrs Baird's Story".

The section of the state document showing the address of 1015 Cactus accompanies this post. I didn't want to include the full document because of privacy reasons, even though it is a public domain document. I may change my mind about this in the future.

Origin of Page 6 Discovered

2008-07-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

I've finally found at least part of the document that "Page 6" belongs to. I visited the Fort Worth Planning Department to take care of some business and I showed them Page 6 and asked if they had seen it. They did - it was part of a larger document (which in turn, is part of an even larger document) that is in the city file for the house.

The document is titled "The Mrs Baird's Story" and they only had a copy of the cover page and pages four through seven of it. I'm not sure what the document really is, or when it was published. It looks to be some sort of pamphlet or handout used at the bakery.

If you know of a full copy of this document and can somehow connect me with it, or you know what the document is or what it was used for, please let me know.

I've updated the original "Page 6" post with information that states I've found the source.

The Mrs Baird's Story

2008-07-17T21:00:00.011-05:00

The Mrs Baird's Story

They came to Texas in a chair car and brought Fort Worth its first steam popcorn machine. The story of the Baird family and the baking business they started.

Santa Fe Restaurant

512 Hemphill

In the early part of 1905, Mr. Baird sold the Little Chicago Restaurant and began operating a restaurant on 15th Street. Hoyt, who was now 8, picked up the meat for the restaurant early each morning at H. E. Sawyer Grocery on South Main and took it to the restaurant on his bicycle. He started the fire in the stove and made hot cake batter. When his father arrived to start serving breakfasts, Hoyt went on to school.

The family now lived at 512 Hemphill, on the corner of Hemphill and Cochran. Mrs. Baird was once more baking all the bread for her family. She often baked more than she needed and gave the extra loaves to her neighbors. They liked her bread and she soon gained quite a reputation around the neighborhood for baking good bread. In fact, her neighbors urged her to bake enough for them too whenever she baked. And even in those days they referred to her bread as "Mrs Baird's Bread."

Finally, in 1908, Mrs. Baird decided to take her neighbors' suggestion. She would bake bread to sell. Her husband was still operating the restaurant, but his health was not good. He suffered from diabetes, and this was long before the discoveries were made that would mean so much to people with this illness.

Mrs. Baird started baking in her small four-burner wood-fired kitchen range. At first the boys delivered the freshly baked bread on foot after school. They carried the loaves in baskets. The baskets had hinged tops, which raised at each end, much like modern picnic baskets. Mrs. Baird put a clean flour sack in the bottom, put in the loaves of still hot bread, and then covered them with another clean flour sack. Each basket held about 6 one-pound loaves of bread. Later the boys used a bicycle to make deliveries.

As more people wanted to buy her bread, Mrs. Baird remembered the small one-room house behind her rented home. It was unused. So she remodeled it and moved her baking there from the family kitchen. To bake more, she bought a commercial oven from the Metropolitan Hotel. This oven baked 40 loaves at a time and was gas-fired. It burned the artificial "Pintsch" gas then used in a number of homes and businesses. Walls of the oven were filled with sand to help keep the heat in. Mrs. Baird paid the hotel seventy-five dollars for the oven. She paid twenty-five dollars in cash and traded out the balance in bread and rolls. Dewey now helped his mother with the baking and the other boys delivered the bread. The girls helped by taking care of the housework so their mother could spend full time baking.

Sales Wagon

With more production, the delivery system now had trouble keeping up. Mr. Baird, who was a good mechanic, turned to the family buggy. It was a Phaeton and, with a little modifying, might well solve the delivery problem. He took off the seats and built a wooden panel body. He put this on the buggy chassis. This made an excellent delivery wagon and greatly increased the little bakery's capacity for route service. The family owned two horses, Ned and Nellie, and they now joined the firm.

The sales wagon had three shelf areas. Merchandise was carried in large flat wire baskets with sides about 4 inches high. Clean flour sacks were first placed in the baskets. Then bread was placed on end in these baskets, 4 loaves wide, 6 loaves deep, for a total of 24 loaves in each basket. In those days, loaves were all one-pound size.

A Mr. Lipps was hired to drive the wagon. Whenever he was ill, 13-year-old Hoyt relieved him as driver. Later Hoyt became the regular driver.

A Mrs. Weston helped care for the younger children while Mrs. Baird worked in the bakery. Mrs. Weston had the first phonograph the Baird children had ever seen. It was an Edison, with thick cylinder-shaped records. "The Preacher and the Bear" was one of the records that helped make the baby sitter's chore easier. The Baird family liked music. Mr. Baird played the harmonica, Dewey played the piano and mandolin, and all the family liked to sing along.

1015 Cactus

In 1910 the family moved again, this time to 1015 Cactus. The house was on the corner of Cactus and Washington. (Today Cactus is called Jefferson. The name was changed in 1924.) The lot was 50 feet wide and 150 feet deep. The family rented the house from a Mr. Hogg of Decatur. It also had a small one-room house in the back yard. Mr. Hogg agreed to remodel this. Mrs. Baird added a brick peel oven. The oven doors opened inside the building, but the bulk of the oven was outside.

The peel oven was heated by wood. First a fire was built in the firebox. Then, when the oven was hot, the fire was taken out and the bread put in to bake.

Wood was brought by the cord and came in long sticks about 2 inches in diameter. The Baird boys used a saw to cut the pieces to oven ... They put three or four sticks in ... at a time, then sawed them to proper length.

Young Hoyt was now the regular driver for the sales wagon. His mother would often go with him on the route. She helped get new customers while he was serving the regular customers, and she also checked her 14-year-old driver-salesman's ledger to be sure he was keeping it properly. This was a paperback notebook ledger which the driver carried on the wagon. It carried a record of sales to charge customers. These charge customers paid once a week. Customers could buy 24 tickets for a dollar. Each ticket was good for a one-pound loaf of bread. This brought in cash for the business.

Other than the notebook carried on the wagon, the family did not keep a set of books. If they had money left over at the end of the month, they figured they had made a profit.

William A. Baird, the father who had brought his family to Texas 10 years earlier, died on December 20, 1911. He died without dreaming that the little bakery his wife had started would one day become the nation's largest family-owned baking organization. But even then, in the last days of his illness, he must have gained great consolation from the knowledge that his family could support itself.

Within a year's time after the move to Washington and Cactus, Mrs. Baird got her landlord to help the family make another expansion. At her suggestion, Mr. Hogg built a wooden bakery building next to the family's house but facing Washington Street. This building at 1811 Washington, had a large brick oven. There was also a room up front for a retail store.

Each morning, Mrs. Baird and Dewey worked at baking bread and cakes. In the afternoon she hung up her apron, put on a clean dress, and worked in the store. Bess, the oldest daughter, worked downtown for E. E. Fosdick Insurance and Real Estate, doing her part to help support the family. She remembers seeing her mother, after a long day in the bakery, darning the boys socks by lamplight, dozing, and awakening with a start when she jabbed herself with the darning needle. So Bess began bringing home a a pair of socks on Saturdays for each of her brothers. "They wore them out so fast," she remembers.

The first Mrs. Baird's cakes were baked in this Washington Street bakery for sale in the retail store and on the wagon's sales route. Mrs. Baird now baked a complete line, from creme puffs to layer cakes, cinnamon rolls, and pies. Roland, now 12, was also helping his mother and Dewey with the baking.

In the bake shop, production was all done by hand. These hand operations were the same operations that are performed today by machines where bread is baked the yeast-rising way.

Mrs. Baird mixed dough by hand. She used a wooden trough (pronounced "troe") that was about 6 feet long, 24 inches wide, and 24 inches deep. The trough held about 300 pounds of dough. Mrs. Baird put flour and other ingredients into the trough, mixed these by hand, let it set and rise. When the dough had risen, she punched it down, let it rise again, and then punched it down again. Then she and her oldest son Dewey cut off sections of dough with a dough knife and put it on the work bench. Here the dough was cut to loaf size. Each time a piece of dough was cut, it was checked on a scale set at the weight desired (18 1/2 ounces.) It was seldom that Dewey or his mother had to do any additional cutting. Through long practice they knew the exact size needed.

The work bench had flour sifted on it. The steps in make-up went like this:
1. The first baker cut off loaf-sized pieces of dough.
2. The second baker, with flour dust on hands and handling two pieces of dough at a time, rolled the loaf-sized piece into balls. (He was performing the operation done today by the rounder.)
3. These rounded pieces of dough were then placed in the lines at the end of the work table. They were allowed to to proof there. (Relax and rise.) Flour sacks were laid over these rounded pieces of dough to keep them from drying out.
4. When the dough was ready, the baker pressed each dough piece with the palm of his hand, mashing it flat. Next he stretched it, then folded one side over the other, rolling the dough up like a jelly roll with the ends open. (The tigh ... dough was rolled, the bett ... the finished loaf would be. Today this is done by the molder.)
5. Then the rolled dough pieces were placed in pans.
6. The pans were next placed on wire racks and rolled into the proof box to rise. In the proof box, the dough had to remain moist while rising or a crust would form. At first, the Bairds placed pans of hot water in the bottom of the proof box. Later they added a steam pipe.
7. When the dough had risen to fill the pans, the racks were rolled out of the proof box to the front of the oven. Then, using a long-handled peel, the pans of dough were placed into the pre-heated oven to bake.

1911 Sales Route

The bakery did a thriving business. Often at 5 P.M., cars would be lined up for two or more blocks waiting for bread just out of the oven. Meanwhile, Hoyt Baird and his delivery wagon were carrying a full line of baked goods. The wagon was literally a bakery on wheels. There was a shelf for sweet goods, a shelf for bread and rolls, and a shelf for miscellaneous items.

There was a bell on the sales wagon. When the wagon stopped in front of a regular customer's house, Hoyt would hit the bell with a large "S" wrench. Other housewives in the block would hear it and come out to see the merchandise. This way he could wait on several customers at a time. But there was a drawback to this "group selling". The ladies found it a great time for a daily chat at the back of the wagon.

While they were chatting and deciding what they wanted to buy, the horse would most likely be sampling a customer's lawn. "Sampling" meant grabbing a mouthful of grass and pulling it out by the roots. If the conversation at the back of the wagon lasted too long, Ned the horse might step up on the lawn with both front feet for a better go at the grass. Lawn owners didn't like this. A housewife, at the back of the wagon, would suddenly yell, "Get that horse of my lawn!"

When a group of customers had been served, the driver would quickly close the wagon's rear doors. The moment Ned heard the doors close, he took off. He was on his way to the next customer, and some greener grass in the next block. Ned knew all the stops. He would stride down the street and, when he came to a customer's house, wouild stop abruptly. There were times when Hoyt would be off the route for a day or two. When he returned, Ned might suddenly stop in front of a strange house. Sometimes it took a lot of urging to get Ned to move on. Later, Hoyt would learn the house was a new stop added while he was gone.

As Hoyt drove his wagon along the sales route, he often saw Bruno Reich, who operated a wholesale bakery route, serving stores with a truck. He could not help envying Bruno and longed for the day when he could have a truck for his route. That day came sooner than he expected.

In 1917, the family bought a Ford car. They had a panel body built for it, took off the passenger seats, and bolted the panel body in place to make a panel truck. The truck was painted a cream color and "Eat More Mrs. Baird's Bread" was lettered on each side. About this time the Bairds took on three wholesale accounts. These were the Telephone Exchange at Rosedale and Jennings, which bought only pies; the Telephone Exchange at Lamar and 10th, which also bought pies; and the Sandegard Grocery at 10th and Houston.

Sandegard's was a large store that also had a delicatessen. The delicatessen served sandwiches and lunches. At first the store took only cakes, and built a special case for these. The store was served daily, with delivery twice on Saturday. Later bread was added. It was displayed on top of the cake display case. People would often stop Hoyt when he came in with a basket of bread and take the freshly baked loaves out of the basket before he could put it on top of the display case. No one back at the little bakery realized, as the first grocery store was added to the sales route, that this was a most significant event. For it was with the grocer and his customers, not house to house, that the organization's future would lie.

Wholesale Begins

From 1919 to 1928, the new bakery was enlarged nine times. This was one addition each year. Competitors in the Fort Worth market were Reich's B & B (Biggest and Best), Walker's Big Dandy Bread, and Doherty's Butter Krust.

About 1920, the family induced Mrs. Baird to quit working in the bakery. They thought she had worked long enough. The family built a two-story home on the corner of Scott and Beach Streets. Mrs. Baird moved there and quit working in the retail sales room. Later she moved to 2429 Rogers Road. She continued as active head of the business until her death in 1961.

With the bakery at 6th Avenue and Terrell doing well, Roland suggested expanding to Dallas. Mrs. Baird could have said, "Let's just stay the size we are." The business could really be hurt if the expansion failed. "But she never batted an eye," Hoyt Baird recalls. She gave her approval for that expansion to Dallas and for the others that followed.

This willingness to take on new challenges was, he feels, the most important single factor in the growth and success of the business. It was this readiness to move ahead that helped to eventually create more than 2,500 jobs and make Mrs. Baird's the outstanding organization it is today.

Family Supervision

The Dallas plant opened in 1928, with son Roland Baird heading up the plant for the Baird family. In 1938, a plant was opened in Houston with Dewey heading the plant for the family and B.J. Barr as General Manager. Later Mr. Barr became a Vice President and member of the Board of Directors. That same year the Fort Worth operation moved into a new bread plant on Summit. The plant at Sixth and Terrell was now devoted exclusively to cakes. Hoyt Baird now headed the Fort Worth bread plant for the Baird family, with A. D. Gillespie, Sr. as General Manager. C. B. Baird headed the Cake plant with Dudley Johnson as General Manager.

During these years of growth for Mrs. Baird's, changes were also taking place in the way the products they were baked were being marketed. In the early 20's, wrapping was introduced for bread. The first wrapping machines were semi-automatic, with the operator doing part of the folding. Sliced bread was introduced in 1927. In November 1936, Mrs. Baird's began hand-twisting bread. This procedure, in which two half-loaf pieces of dough were intertwined to form one dough piece, continues today at all Mrs. Baird's plants. Twisting improves flavor, texture, and keeping qualities of the loaf.

In 1949, a new plant was built in Abilene. William D. (Bill) Baird headed the plant for the Baird family with A. D. Gillespie, Sr., as General Manager.

Plans were also underway to build a new plant in Dallas to match that growing market. In 1950, the continuous mix process was introduced to the baking industry. It offered a short cut in production time and a considerable saving in cost. The planners of the new Dallas plant carefully considered the revolutionary new process and decided to stay with the yeast-raised baking method they had used since the business began. They felt the consumer would prefer bread baked the yeast-raised way. They have never regretted the decision.

In 1953, Mrs. Baird's of Dallas moved into a huge new plant recognized by the industry as the nation's largest automatic bread plant.

Roland Baird, who helped his mother and older brother Dewey with baking and later headed the Dallas plant for the family, retired in 1954.

The business expanded again in 1959. Bakeries were purchased in Lubbock and Victoria and, early the next year, bakeries were also acquired in Austin and Waco. In 1969, a pie plant was purchased in Abilene.

But while the passing years brought growth, they also brought sadness. Mrs. Baird died June 3, 1961 after a long, eventful, and certainly gratifying life. She had often said she was far prouder that her children had grown up to be good citizens than she was of the fact that she had founded a successful business. At her funeral, the officiating minister described Mrs. Baird as "an ideal woman in the eyes of God." He said Mrs. Baird had fulfilled the highest traditions of American life but, in all the fullness of her work, she had always been a devoted mother and family woman. In Mrs. Baird's memory, the Texas Senate passed Senate Resolution No. 13. In the Resolution, the Senate said that Mrs. Baird has been "a living example for mothers, wives, business executives, Christians and good people the world over." Copies of the Resolution were sent to her family with deep regard of the Texas Senate.

Dewey Baird died March 25, 1965. Dewey was the oldest son and had been active in the business from the very beginning. He had been his mother's first assistant and, during the years, had gone on to become President and eventually Chairman of the Board.

C. B. Baird, Mrs. Baird's youngest son, died May 27, 1969. When the business started, C. B. had been only 5. But he soon took an active part in the young business, became an officer and member of the Board of Directors and, until his death, headed the Fort Worth Cake Plant for the Baird family.

Others who played vital roles in the growth of the business are also gone. Charlie Longguth, the iceman who became the Company's first route salesman, died in 1956. C. C. Gressett, who joined the company as a bookkeeper in 1924 and rose to Vice President and General Manager of the Dallas Plant, also a member of the Board of Directors, died in 1962. A. D. "Tiny" Gillespie, Sr., who joined the Company as a relief driver and later managed two bakeries, died in 1967. He had risen to Vice President and member of the Board of Directors. Dudley Johnson, who was the Cake Plant's first general manager and whose career spanned from route salesman to Vice President and member of the Board of Directors, died in late 1967.

B. J. Barr, who played a major role in establishing Mrs. Baird's products in the Houston market, died in 1975 after a long and colorful career in the baking industry. He joined Mrs. Baird's in 1938 and went to Houston as General Manager. He was later named Vice President and General Manager of the Houston plant. In 1957 he was named Executive Vice President. He retired in 1959 but continued as a member of the Board of Directors until his death.

Lillian Hughes started as a cashier in July, 1925 and during the ensuing years saw the organization grow from one plant to eleven. "All through the years," she said, "I learned one very important thing. Any employee who enjoys his or her work and does it well can expect advancement. The opportunity is there for everyone." When she retired on July 31, 1975 - the first employee to log 50 years of continuous service - Mrs. Hughes held the top level position of Corporate Secretary of Mrs Baird's Bakeries Inc.

William D. Baird, Chairman of the Board and grandson of the founder, died in 1976. When Bill was born the family business was housed in a two-room wooden building at 1811 Washington. He started working in the bakery as soon as his parents would let him, later supervised design and construction of bread plants at Fort Worth, Abilene, and Dallas, and for many years headed production for all Mrs. Baird's plants. There were and are many others in every area of the business, who have made lasting contributions to Mrs Baird's Bakeries.

In February 1970, Mrs. Baird's announced another expansion. Land was purchased for a new Cake Plant. The site was a 30-acre tract in South Fort Worth on Interstate 35, ideally suited for statewide distribution. Ground was broken September 28, 1970. The plant was completed in 1971 and production began early in 1972. The former Cake Plant at 6th Avenue and Terrell was closed in September, 1972, and all production moved to the new Cake Plant. In May, 1976, a bread plant was acquired in San Antonio, bring the total number of plants to 11.

As Mrs Baird's Bakeries moves toward the 80's, the same ingredients that brought the organization this far are still at work. It is still a family-owned business with W. Hoyt Baird as Chairman of the Executive Committee. Vernon Baird is President, Allen Baird is Executive Vice President, Clayton Baird is Senior Vice President, and Carroll Baird is Vice President of Operations. Three grandsons, Bob Baird, Bryon Baird, and Arthur Baird, and one great granson, Scott Baird, also hold top level positions. There is still the dedication and respect for baking a good product that Mrs. Baird instilled in her family at 512 Hemphill and 1811 Washington. The business that started in a home kitchen has grown until more than 2,500 families have joined the family that started it all. W. Hoyt Baird evaluates the contribution of this ever-growing team of employees this way: "There is no way this business could have succeeded without the cooperation and dedication of our employees. The secret of success in any business is people, and we have had - and still have - the very best!"

This, then, is the story of Mrs. Baird's until the present. But time does not stand still, and neither will this business. This Company's history has been a story of vitality, of teamwork, of growth, and of progress. Its future will be the same.

- end -

A photo accompanies this document that shows a man driving a carriage with a line of three people next to it, apparently waiting to purchase bread. A section of a house is in the background. The caption reads:
Sales Wagon - This wagon, shown being used in a Mrs. Baird's television commercial, is a replica of the first sales wagon used by the Baird family. To make their wagon, the Bairds took the seat off the family buggy and added a panel body.

A diagram is also included with this document. It shows the location of the home on Cactus, along with the various bakery expansions at that location. More can be found on this in the "Page 6" post.

Update to Mother's Legacy Lives On

2008-07-17T19:00:00.000-05:00

I've updated the post, Mother's Legacy Lives On with scans of the original newspaper article which includes photographs of Ninnie Baird, a painting of what is said to be the Hemphill Street home, and a photo of the "first stove". This article states that "Mrs. Baird moved the family and the back yard bakery operation to a rent house on Washington, at the corner of Cactus (now called Jefferson)."

We are particularly interested in the photo of the "first stove" from this article. The University of Texas at Arlington says they don't have an original negative of this photograph in their archives, and I haven't found the location of this first stove. Presumably, the photo was taken in 1977 when the article was written and that stove probably still exists somewhere.

Follow the link to the original post to view all of the scans and images.

Business Toast of the Town

2008-06-10T19:00:00.004-05:00

The article, "Business Toast of the Town" at the D Magazine web site has some interesting information on the early history of Baird's Bread, as well as some insight into the Baird children in later years. It was published in November of 1984, nearly 25 years ago when Hoyt was 87 years old. It details a few items that other articles don't mention. The only incorrect item I've noticed is the last name of Ninnie. The article lists it as Henderson, when her maiden name was really Harrison.

It mentions Ninnie being an orphan, learning to bake bread from an aunt. In other research, I've found that a few accounts tell of Ninnie becoming an orphan (her mother died earlier, when Ninnie was five years old) was because her father, Elisha Harrison, was killed in an argument over the job of Postmaster of Dyer, Tennessee. The details of this story can be found on this post at RootsWeb.

The article also helps establish the date of the combination bakery / storefront being built by 1912, but skips the move from the Hemphill home she lived at in 1908, to the Cactus home in 1910.

In case you missed the link above, you can find the entire article here.

First Bakery Photo

2008-06-05T19:00:00.001-05:00

I've scanned the original article, Mrs. Baird's First Baked Bread in Kitchen Stove, which contains a photograph of "Mrs. Baird's first bakery". The scans now accompany the original article and I'm also including them with this post.

This "bakery" no longer exists, but was probably located at 1811 Washington. If you recognize this photo and have any further information about it, please contact us.

Page 6: Diagram of Cactus Street

2008-05-17T19:00:00.004-05:00

Update: This page comes from the publication, "The Mrs Baird's Story".

"Page 6" was a copy of a single page given to me by a previous owner of the home. It contains a diagram of the corner of Cactus and Jefferson, showing the location of the home along with the first and second sheds, calling them the "second expansion" and the "third expansion".

The diagram is titled:

1015 CACTUS
FORT WORTH, TEXAS
1910-1919

The text for the second expansion is:

SECOND EXPANSION
(1910)
SMALL HOUSE CONVERTED
INTO BAKERY
PEEL OVEN ADDED

The text for the third expansion is:

THIRD EXPANSION
(1911)
LANDLORD BUILT BAKERY
AND RETAIL SHOP AT
1811 WASHINGTON

The caption for the diagram states:

This drawing shows how the two expansions were made after the Baird family moved to 1015 Cactus in 1910. A brick peel oven was added to the small one-room house in the yard and this became the bakery. Within a year, Mrs. Baird got her landlord to build a wooden bakery building facing Washington Street. The name of Cactus Street was changed to Jefferson in 1924.

Update: This page comes from the publication, "The Mrs Baird's Story".

1930 Census and a Lodge

2008-04-23T19:00:00.001-05:00

The Fort Worth City Directories from 1928 to 1932 show the Cactus home being occupied by H. B. Edens, and the 1930 Census shows Hugh B. Edens, his wife, Mary F., and six children renting the place and living there. The 1932 City Directory also shows Mattie Montgomery, a nurse, living at the home. A deed to the property, dated 10 Oct 1932, lists the home as being occupied by H. B. Edens. By 1933, the family had disappeared.

Other interesting items on this census sheet are that Hugh B. (probably Baker) Edens is listed as a laborer for the "city pipe line", and three daughters have jobs, one as a stenographer for "auto supply", another as a stenographer for an "oil company" and the last works at a "ladies shop".

Some genealogical research shows a man named Hugh Baker Edens marrying Mary Francis Montgomery. In comparing other facts, beginning with birth dates and children, these are probably the same families.

Another interesting find is the March 1946 Fort Worth City Directory shows the two homes on the property as the "Washington Rooms", and the November 1946 directory shows it as the "Coefficient Lodge".

Given this new information, I've updated the Brief History and the Census posts.

If you have any insight into this or anything that also documents the above information, please contact us.

The Old Mrs. Baird's Bread Billboard

2008-04-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

In Lili's Bistro on Magnolia Avenue, there is a large Mrs. Baird's Bread billboard painted on the wall. The story I was told about it is, when some previous owners were remodeling, they removed some of the wall and found the billboard behind it. They carefully removed everything around the billboard and put some sort of clear coat over it to keep it from degrading any further. I was also told the billboard was put up in the 1930's. I have little to base my opinion on, but I think the billboard was probably put up earlier - maybe the 20's, and it may be older.

I've seen a few times but have never taken photos of it. However, someone else has. You can find some a snapshot online at FortWorthology.

The billboard is hand painted, and I'm sure that nothing can compare to seeing the detailed work in person.

Brief History Update

2008-04-18T19:00:00.001-05:00

Using the information I've uncovered in the past two weeks, I've updated the Brief History page, adding more detail of the history before the Baird family moved in, along with about fifteen new references.

Kuhlman & Blue Research

2008-04-10T19:00:00.002-05:00

After noting the potential link between the Kuhlman & Blue business in the Flatiron Building to George Blue, owner of the Cactus Home from 1901 to 1906, I've now positively verified the connection after another walk through the Fort Worth City Directories.

Notes for the Cowan-Kuhlman House in the Historic Survey state that Fred M. Kuhlman is a later occupant at that home, and that Kuhlman & Blue had an office in downtown Fort Worth at the Flatiron building. Working on the hunch that this Blue must be George W. Blue, and that the Flatiron building was completed in 1907, I decided to start with the 1909-1910 directory.

City Directory 1909-1910
We indeed find that the Blue part of the business is George W. Blue, the owner of the house on Cactus. Note that this is after he sold the home to the Hoggs and moved out. However, the Kuhlman & Blue business is not yet located in the Flatiron Building.

KUHLMAN & BLUE (FRED M. Kuhlman, Geo. W. Blue) general fireproofing, reinforced concrete, paving and sewerage, contrs, office 500 Reynold bldg. Sw. Ph 2631
KUHLMAN FREDRICK M. (Kuhlman & Blue), bldg 906 W. Weatherford, Sw. ph 929

City Directory 1911
Finally, a location in the Flatiron Building. I wasn't able to locate the advertisement that is mentioned.

KUHLMAN & BLUE (FRED M. Kuhlman, George W. Blue), gen fireproofing, reinforced concrete, paving and sewerage contrs., 502 Flatiron bldg. Ph. Lamar 826. See advt.

By the City Directory of 1916, Kuhlman & Blue was no longer listed, but I wanted to continue down the line of directories until I could find when Fred Kuhlman moved into the Cowan-Kuhlman House. In the 1918 directory, he is listed as living at 1728 Washington (another home which is still standing on the corner of Cactus and Washington, and was built in 1915) and by the 1920 directory (1919 was missing at the Fort Worth Public Library), he was indeed residing in the Cowan-Kuhlman House.

Kuhlman, Fred M. office 702 Flatiron bldg, res 1800 Washington

I've used this information to update the Blue/Cowan/Kuhlman/Flatiron post.

The Blues, the Cowans, the Kuhlmans, and the Flatiron Building

2008-04-09T19:00:00.007-05:00

As I research the home on Cactus Street, I'm beginning to suspect there's more to the history of the home than just the Baird family living there. This article is mainly a list of notes and references that connect the family of George W. Blue, a plasterer, to the Cowan family that had the home built across the street, and then a suspected link to Fred M. Kuhlman, and then finally to the beautiful Flatiron Building in downtown Fort Worth.

George W. Blue bought the lot on Cactus Street in 1901-1902, moving there from 1313 College [1]. It is undetermined if this lot was empty or not when he bought it, but by the time the Fort Worth City Directory of 1901 was published, he was running a plastering business with Marvin Edgar Penewell (Blue & Penewell) out of the home at 1015 Cactus. By time of the City Directory of 1902-1903, he is listed alone as a plasterer - no longer associated with Mr. Penewell. George W. Blue had a daughter named Mabel Lee Blue.

At the same time, Andrew Cowan, a stonemason and brickmason had a house built across the street in 1901 [2]. Andrew had a son by the same name, Andrew [3]. Son, Andrew Cowan and Mabel Blue must have met because they lived across the street from each other. In the book, "A Goodly Heritage: The Cowan Family":

The Blue family lived across the street on Washington from the Cowans. The young lady of that family would notice each evening that Andrew would come home from work, dress all up, hitch up the horse and buggy and go off to call on the girls. One evening as he passed she said to him, "Why don't you ever take me for a ride?" He gave her one look turned around, went home and called her on the telephone and asked if he could take her for a ride...it was Mama and to her knowledge no other girl ever got a buggy ride with Andrew but Mabel Blue. (Her granddaughter, Andra Lee, just can't believe htat grandmother was so forward).

Andrew and Mabel married in 1907 [4]. By 1910 they had two children and lived on College [5].

This creates a definite link between the two homes at the corner of Cactus and Washington, and then there's more. That would be the Kuhlman half of the Cowan-Kuhlman House.

Fred M. Kuhlman was a "a contractor who specialized in road paving, fireproofing and reinforced concrete construction" [2] and resided in the Cowan-Kuhlman House starting in 1919 or 1920 [6], for a yet (to me) undetermined number of years. The historical survey goes on to say that "The firm of Kuhlman & Blue had its offices downtown in the Flatiron Building."

Further research in the 1909-1910 Fort Worth City Directory shows that the firm of Kuhlman & Blue was comprised of both Frederick M. Kuhlman and George W. Blue. It moved into the Flatiron Building in 1911 [7], and then was possibly disbanded by 1916 [8].

The Blue family sold the Cactus home in 1906, before Mabel married Andrew in 1907 and before George Blue and Fred Kuhlman started Kuhlman & Blue. Fred Kuhlman finally moved into the Cowan-Kuhlman House in 1919 or 1920 [9].

[1] Census 1900, Fort Wort, Ward 8, District 107 (listed incorrectly as "George Blew"), on College Ave., beginning on line 64
[2] Fort Worth Historical Survey, Cowan-Kuhlman House
[3] Census 1900, Fort Worth, Ward 7, District 106, entry for family of Andrew Cowan on May St., beginning on line 81.
[4] "Goodly Heritage: The Cowan Family" by Verna Hovey Cowan, p 174
[5] Census 1910, Fort Worth, Ward 8, District 134, entry for Andrew Cowan on College Ave., beginning on line 91.
[6] Fort Worth City Directory 1920
[7] Fort Worth City Directory 1911
[8] Fort Worth City Directory 1916, Kuhlman & Blue is no longer listed.
[9] Fort Worth City Directory 1920 (the city directory for 1919 was not available)

Federal Census Forms (1910-1930)

2008-04-07T19:00:00.004-05:00

I've sifted through a few Federal Census forms during my research. There are a few areas in the neighborhood that might be of interest to other researchers. The links will take you to Ancestry.com. You'll need an account or the fourteen day free trial to access the forms. Also, if you visit the Fort Worth Public Library, they can give you access to these forms.

1910 Census
Ward 6, District 121
This is the area where the Baird family lived at 512 Hemphill at the time the census was taken on April 15th, 1910. It just so happens the family is on the first page for that district. Note that Ninnie Baird's name appears as "Minnie".

Fort Worth Ward 8, District 134
The area containing the corner of Cactus and Washington is within this district. I've paged through the forms a few times, but so far have been unable to locate an entry for 1015 Cactus.

Interestingly, Henry Slack, who is listed in the Fort Worth City Directory 1909-1910 as residing at 1015 Cactus, is also listed in the census on April 16h as living at 1907 Washington. He must have moved a block South. Currently, there is not a house with the address of 1907 Washington.

1920 Census

Ward 6, District 119
This district should contain 512 Hemphill.

Ward 8, District 132
It's this district that contains the corner of Cactus and Washington. Page 24 in this collection shows the address of 1015 Cactus. A woman, Elizabeth Tuck is shown as head of household, along with two sons, Arthur and Ollie. Arthur is listed as a confectionery salesman. This corresponds with the Fort Worth City Directory of 1920.

1930 Census

It looks like District 33 contains the corner of Cactus / Jefferson and Washington. Page 51 contains the entry for the Cactus home, occupied by the Hugh B. Edens family

If anyone looks through these census pages and finds anything else of interest, please let us know.

More City Directory Research (1902 - 1906)

2008-04-03T19:00:00.001-05:00

Putting in some more research into the Fort Worth City Directories, I traced the years George Blue lived in the house, and watched the Baird family move from home to home.

City Directory 1902-1903

Blue George W., plastering contr, r. 1015 Cactus cor Washington ave. 3.

By 1902, George Blue didn't list himself as working with M. Penewell anymore.

Baird Ninnie (Mrs. W. A.), propr Santa Fe restaurant, 1514 Jones, r. same
Baird William A., mgr Mrs. N. Baird's restaurant, r. 1514 Jones, 7.

The Star-Telegram article, "Mother's Legacy Lives On" says, "But the older Baird had always been interested in the restaurant business, and to this he turned his attention next, buying, operating and then selling out several in different parts of town." But this entry lists Ninnie as the proprietor and William as the manager, with the restaurant being named after Ninnie.

City Directory 1904-1905

Blue George W., contg plasterer, r. 1015 Cactus ave cor Washington. 3. Sw. Ph. 1845
Baird Ninnie (Mrs. W.A.), proprss Jennings ave bakery, 204 S. Jennings ave, Ft. W. ph. 1980 r. 418 W. Daggett ave.
Baird William A., mgr Jennings ave bakery, r. 418 W. Daggett ave. 7.

Ninnie is again listed this time as the proprietress of a bakery and William as the manager. She was evidently baking a few years before Mrs. Baird's Bread is said to be established in 1908.

City Directory 1905-1906

Blue George W., contg plasterer, r. 1015 Cactus. 3. Sw. ph. 1845.
BAIRD NINNIE (MRS. W.A.), restaurant, 1113 1/2 Main, r. 1315 E. Bluff. Ft. W. ph 1087
BAIRD WILLIAM A., Mgr Mrs. N. Baird, 1113 1/2 Main. r. 1315 E. Bluff. 5.

This year, the Bairds have their entries in the City Directory in large bold capital letters.

City Directory Research

2008-04-02T19:00:00.004-05:00

I managed to get some more time at the library to go through a few more city directories and while not much showed up about the Bairds, I did find other residents of the home and possibly the builder.

City Directory 1901-1902

Baird William A., popcorn stand, r. 512 E. 2d. 6

I'm not sure what the 512 E. 2d. 6 is.

Blue George W. (Blue & Penewell), r. 1015 Cactus cor Washington Ave 3.
Blue & Penewell (George W. Blue, Melvin E. Penewell), contg plasterers, 1015 Cactus
...
Penewell M. Edgar (Blue & Penewell), plasterer, r. 1306 College ave. 3.

As you can see, George Blue not only lived in the Cactus house around 1901-1902, but also ran a plastering business from the home. If my memory is correct from glancing at the 1899-1900 City Directory, George Blue moved from College Ave over to Cactus, and probably lived nearer to Melvin Penewell before the move.

Yarbrough Frank G., carp, contr, bldr, r. 1319 5th ave. 6.

Frank Yarbrough is interesting to me because F. G. Yarbrough owned the home and sold it to the Blue family. Notes from the previous owner of the Cactus home show that Yarbrough must have built it. The City Directory lists him as a carpenter, contractor, and builder and substantiates that he may have built it.

City Directory 1920

Tuck Elizab (wid. T E), res 1015 Cactus
Tuck Jas O, clk La Beaume & Terrell, h 1015 Cactus

Research from the 1920 Census (I'll post more about this research later) shows the Tuck family lived in the Cactus home at that time. To help validate this, I checked the City Directory and found them. I haven't been able to find any other references to "La Beaume & Terrell". It would be interesting to know what type of business this was.

City Directory 1922

Tuck Jas O, clk La Beaume & Terrell, h 1800 College Ave
Tuck Mary E (wid Thos E), r 1800 College

The next available City Directory from the Fort Worth Library was 1922. Checking it, I found they moved, staying on the same block, to 1800 College. A home must have been there before the gas station that is shown in the 1927 Sanborn Fire Map. Currently, this building is part of Old Home Supply.

If you have a connection to any of the above people or businesses, please contact us. It might help us find an older photograph of this home.

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

2008-03-31T19:00:00.002-05:00

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.

Mrs. Baird First Baked Bread in Kitchen Stove

2008-03-28T19:02:00.008-05:00

Article in the Fort Worth Press, published on Sunday, January 24, 1960, page 17 A.

Mrs. Baird First Baked Bread in Kitchen Stove

The family bakery Mrs. Baird started in her home kitchen in 1908 here in Fort Worth has grown into America's largest independent baking organization.

The market area served in 1908 was all within walking distance of that first home kitchen bakery. Today the area served by Mrs. Baird's eight plants covers the major portion of Texas and contains an estimated 6,116,000 people.

The story of the growth of this Fort Worth-founded business is one that could happen only in America. Around the turn of the century, Mrs. Baird was doing all the baking for her family of eight. She often baked more bread than she needed and gave the extra loaves to her neighbors. They liked "Mrs. Baird's Bread" as they called it, and asked her to bake for them too. When Mrs. Baird's husband became too ill to work, she decided to go into the baking business. Son Deward, 16, became first assistant baker to his mother. The three younger boys, Hoyt, Roland, and C. B. became "route men" and delivered the fresh bread on foot, carrying the bread in baskets.

The little business prospered and Mrs. Baird purchased a small wood-burning oven from a Fort Worth hotel. She paid seventy-dollars for the oven - twenty-five dollars in cash and paid out the rest in bread and rolls. The first commercial oven baked 40 loaves at a time.

One neighbor told another. Soon the delivery job became too much for the boys and a horse and wagon were purchased. To meet the first need for expansion, Mrs. Baird put up a little wooden building in the back yard to house the oven.

In 1919, the business had grown so that it entered its first brick building at Sixth and Terrell here in Fort Worth. This building was enlarged and imporved until it soon became one of the largest baking plants in Texas. It is now devoted to cakes.

As Mrs. Baird's sons reached maturity, the company continued to to expand. Today there are bakeries in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, Abilene, Lubbock, and Victoria. A cake plant is located in Fort Worth, at 6th and Terrell, and a frozen roll plant is located in Dallas.

Mrs. Ninnie Baird still heads the organization she founded as chairman of the board. She observed her 90th birthday in May of last year.

End of Article

This article is important because a photograph of a light colored wood shed accompanies the article, with the caption, "Mrs. Baird's first bakery." It is the only photograph I've found of the old shed. The exact location of this shed isn't known.

Tradition of Gift Loaf Will Be Kept as Mrs. Baird Celebrates Birthday

2008-03-28T19:01:00.004-05:00

Article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, published on Wednesday Morning, May 23, 1956.

87 Today
Tradition of Gift Loaf Will Be Kept as Mrs. Baird Celebrates Birthday

A white box, tie with royal blue ribbon and containing a loaf of bread, will be one of the birthday gifts presented to Mrs. Ninnie Baird, 2429 Rogers Rd., Wednesday on her 87th birthday.

A gift loaf of bread means a great deal to the white-haired blue-eyed little woman who is the matriarch of a family of seven living children, 23 grandchildren, and 36 great-grandchildren.

Mrs. Baird's firm influence on the family was expressed a few years ago by one of her granddaughters, who said: "Grandmother does't say much, but somehow you just feel what she approves of and you try to do it."

Herself one of six children, Mrs. Baird has a brother, F. G. Harrison 93. He lives in San Francisco as does their sister, Mrs. Curtis Sargent, and another brother, C. B. Harrison, who is visiting here now and for whom one of Mrs. Baird's sons is named. Their other sister is Mrs. Delia Townsend of Parsons, Tenn.

Mrs. Baird is a native of Tennessee. She came here with her husband and four children. After moving here the couple had four other children. They lived on Hemphill near the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave., and Mrs. Baird, as many mothers of that era, used to bake bread for her family regularly.

Sometimes there would be a loaf left over and she'd give it to a neighbor. Sometimes a neighbor would ask her: "When you bake next time, will you make me some bread, too?" So a gift loaf of bread became a standard present in the Baird family.

The father became an invalid, and the family moved out farther on the South Side to a house at the corner of what then was Cactus St. and Washington. Mrs. Baird continued baking on her kitchen range. She baked in earnest then, because with an invalid husband, she needed to make a little money and could not go out to business.

She sold the bread "out the back door," and finally the man from whom she rented built a shop on the back of the lot, and the boys began delivering the bread in an old surrey.

Mrs. Baird's children are Mrs. A. H. Beitman, 2525 Boyd; D. C. Baird of Houston; W. Hoyt Baird, 2504 Stadium; C. B. Baird, 2209 Ward Parkway; Roland W. Baird of Dallas; Mrs. E. C. Cummins, 3309 Avondale, and Mrs. Edd Hyde,, 2410 Stadium Dr.

More than 60 of her descendants gathered to celebrate Mrs. Baird's birthday last year at her farm. But this year there will be no general gathering of the clan, because Mrs. Baird is being rather quiet after three months in the hospital.

She broke her hip Jan. 1 and is "taking it easy" at home with a nurse. As chairman of the board of the bakery which has grown out of her first home baking, she presides at board meetings at her home.

In talking about their mother and grandmother, some of the boys remarked Tuesday: "We have such a wonderful heritage from Grandmother that we just couldn't let her down," and a son said, "We all think of our work as great fun - none of us think it's real work. We play with it - why one of the boys takes live dough home and bakes up all kinds of fancy things at home."

A daughter said: "Mother is so humble and quiet. She doesn't think she has done anything more than what any mother would do - try to take care of her children."

Three sons and seven grandsons carry on the work Mrs. Baird began.

All the family will send gifts, cards and expressions of their affection Wednesday, and Mrs. Baird will begin another year with a gift loaf of bread wrapped in silver foil as a token of what in her family has in truth been "the staff of life."

End of Article

A photo of "MRS. NINNIE BAIRD" by Rhea-Engert accompanies the article.

Mother's Legacy Lives On

2008-03-28T19:00:00.005-05:00

The following is an article published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sunday, May 8, 1977.

Mother's legacy lives on

Fifth generation now employed at bakeries

By JANICE WILLIAMS
Star-Telegram Writer

This is a Mother's Day story.

It's about a woman who, in the face of incredible odds and despite the conventions of her day and time, originated a business that ultimately was to span the state - and this is not to provide luxuries for her family, but simply to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

No chronicle of Fort Worth, or even of Texas, would be complete without the story of Mrs. Ninnie L. Baird. And although she's been gone for 15 years now, the principles and precepts she instilled in her children live on at the company that bears her name - Mrs. Baird's Bakeries.

What would you do if you had an ailing husband who then died, leaving you with eight children (two others had died in infancy) and next to nothing in cash?

Many modern-day women might simply sit down and let society grapple with the problem. In her own time, shorty after the turn of the century, Mrs. Baird's counterpart might have moved in with relatives. Or, as was the custom of the day, she could have broken up the family, parceling out a child here, another one there.

But she didn't. Instead, she braced herself and took on the dual role of father and mother, at the same time directing her talents and energies to work that until that time had been a back-yard enterprise - baking bread.

Thus the staff of life became a way of life for the Baird family.

* * *

Hoyt Baird was only four years old when the family came to Texas from Tennessee, but he has vivid memories of their early struggles and of his widowed mother stirring bread dough with one hand and holding a baby in the other arm.

Now chairman of the executive committee of a bakery empire, his voice softens and his eyes mist over a little when he talks about those days so long ago.

Oddly enough, the first Baird enterprise in Fort Worth was not in the bakery line, but in popcorn. The father, William Allen Baird, came here as a young man of 33 to "look around" for business opportunities. He liked what he saw, and went back to Tennessee to collect the family and settle in Fort Worth.

He brought more than just his wife and four children, however - a steam popcorn machine, a "first" in the city, which he set up on the corner of 7th and Main across from the old Burton Peel Dry Goods Store.

"It had a clown on top, and a steam whistle," Hoyt says. "And popcorn was a nickel for a big sack, with real melted butter on it."

After this got off to a good start, the father bought a second machine and set it up at 5th and Main, putting the oldest son, Dewey, age 11, in charge of it.

But the older Baird had always been interested in the restaurant business, and to this he turned his attention next, buying, operating and then selling out several in different parts of town. When the restaurant operation moved, so did the family - from Rosen Heights to downtown to South Side - since transportation was slow, and people needed to live near their places of employment.

* * *

As soon as the children were old enough, they worked, too. When Hoyt was eight years old, his father owned a restaurant on 15th Street, and he remembers that his job was to go by bicycle early every morning to a South Side butcher shop and pick up meat for the restaurant. When he got back to town, he started a fire in the stove and made hot cake batter before leaving for school.

The family lived at that time at 512 Hemphill - a Victorian cottage with gingerbread trim around the wide front porch where the parents would rock, and the children play, on long summer evenings. This was destined to become the birthplace of the baking empire, because it was here that word of Mrs. Baird's magic touch with bread traveled on the neighborhood grapevine.

"You know, people in those days used to hand things across the fence to their neighbors, and with my mother, it was loaves of bread," Hoyt says. "Even in those days, everyone called it 'Mrs. Baird's Bread'."

In 1908, as her husband's health declined, Mrs. Baird took the neighbors' suggestion and started baking bread to sell to supplement the family income. At first, she used her four-burner wood-fired kitchen range and the older sons delivered it on foot after they came in from school.

"Mama put flour sacks in big baskets, hinged at the top like picnic baskets, and then set the bread in them, and covered them over with another sack," Hoyt recalls.

As the business grew, Mrs. Baird remodeled a small house (originally meant to be servants' quarters) at the back of the lot, and bought a commercial oven from the old Metropolitan Hotel. She gave $75 for it - $25 in cash, and the rest to be paid out in bread.

* * *

It was a big day for young Hoyt when the family buggy was converted into a delivery wagon of sorts, with a wooden panel body, so he could deliver bread along the route instead of carrying heavy baskets, or delivering by bicycle. Dewey helped his mother with the baking, and the girls took care of the house and of the younger children.

Two years later, Mrs. Baird moved the family and the back yard bakery operation to a rent house on Washington, at the corner of Cactus (now called Jefferson). It also had a servants' house which was converted to a bakeshop, this one with a brick oven.

While the family lived there the father died, in 1911, and then baking took on new urgency, as the only means of family support. Mrs. Baird cajoled her landlord into building another structure on the property, the front of which became the first retail store.

And new lines of bakery goods were added: cream puffs, cinnamon rolls and pies, in addition to bread, rolls and cakes. Though she often labored 16 or more hours a day in the bakery, Mrs. Baird found time occasionally to ride

Turn to Bakery on Page 2

Bakery empire began in back yard

Continued from page 1

along the delivery route with young Hoyt.

"We had this horse named Ned," he says. "Ned knew that route better than I did, I think - and while I was delivering bread inside a house, Ned ate the grass in people's front yards."

The children went to school during the week, to church on Sunday. Their mother's discipline was tough, but fair.

"If she gave us a licking, it was because we deserved it," Hoyt says, recalling the paddlings he got for sneaking off down the T&P tracks to go swimming in the Trinity, a pastime strictly forbidden by his mother because it was too dangerous.

Nor could the children fool her, either - like most mothers, she just instinctively KNEW.

"She could tell when I'd been swimming, even after I dried myself off good with some of that old waste you used to find along the railroad tracks."

* * *

In 1917, they bought the first family car - a Ford they customized into a delivery truck by taking out the seats and putting a panel body on it. On the side they painted: "Eat More Mrs. Baird's Bread."

It was about this same time, too, that three wholesale accounts came to them - and with Hoyt's enlistment in the Army the following year, the family decided to discontinue the retail business and go wholesale only.

The rest is history: expansion to five delivery routes that covered all of the city, purchase of a lot at Terrell and Sixth Avenue for the site of the first bakery the family built from the ground up, and enlargement of this facility nine times in as many years.

It was a small step from this to expanding into the Dallas market and then on to all of the others: Houston, Abilene, Victoria, Lubbock, Waco, Austin, and the newest one, in San Antonio.

This is a business today that has a payroll of 2,500 persons, and serves 10 million Texas customers.

When the first out-of-town plant opened, in Dallas, an important decision was made - a member of the family would head it, supervising all the operations and taking personal responsibility for a product that bore the family name.

"And it's still that way," says Hoyt. "Mama taught us first that there is no substitute for quality or cleanliness, and that we always stood behind our product."

He remembers that even in those early days in the back-yard kitchen, when his mother was mixing dough by hand, how particular she was about ingredients.

"She'd break an egg, and if the yolk didn't stand up good, she'd throw it away - she said it wasn't fresh enough to put in her bread."

* * *

There are Bairds all through the bakery operation, even to the fifth generation now. Traditionally, they start out at the bottom. Vernon Baird, the president and official company spokesman, remembers that he began his career by sweeping floors, and later greasing pans.

Vernon is a grandson of Mrs. Baird's, and the one that you see on television commercials. This is not as glamorous as it may seem - it entails dressing up, donning makeup, and standing for hours under hot lights while commercials are shot and reshot. Although it adds to his already heavy work load, he feels it is necessary to help carry out the image of a family solidly behind its product.

There are other extra chores he's taken on, too. Not many company presidents take the time to check out things personally at the consumer level, but Vernon does.

One of his habits is to drop into a supermarket - whichever one is closest when he's out and about town - and take a walk past the bakery shelves.

Frequently, customers recognize him because of the television commercials, and despite the fact that this fame embarrasses him a little, he thinks that he is doing something that his grandmother would approve of.

* * *

And what of Mrs. Baird when the business had grown mammoth in scope, and children and grandchildren were actively engaged in the overall operation?

After they finally persuaded her to hang up her apron, she could, of course, have retired and simply rested from her labors, but such a thing would have been alien to her nature. Instead, she took an active part in company affairs up to the time of her death, when she was in her 90s.

"She was always right in there with us in things we wanted to do," says Hoyt. "Another woman might have said 'Let's wait awhile'."

But despite all her obvious qualities as a business woman, it's as a mother, grandmother, and matriarch that the Bairds think of her first.

He characterizes her as a "remarkable" woman - loving, patient, tolerant, with a deep and abiding religious faith - and above all else, a good mother.

"She said she didn't start the bakery for any other reason except to take care of us," he says. "And she always told us that she was a lot prouder that her children had grown up to be good citizens than she was of the fact that she had founded a successful business."

End of Article

There are three photos that accompany the article. One is if Ninnie Baird with the caption, "NINNIE L. BAIRD '...a remarkable woman'. Another is of the Budd Briggs painting, and another is of the first stove used to bake bread. The caption is "HUMBLE BEGINNING...first bakery, first stove."

Brief History

2008-03-27T19:02:00.024-05:00

The Blue Ownership

Based on Tarrant County Deeds, F. G. Yarbrough purchased the property in 1900 for $500. He then sold the lot, described in metes and bounds, to George W. Blue for $525 [1]. The family of George Blue lived there, at 1015 Cactus from 1901 until 1906 [2], when he sold it to John H. Hogg for $1800 [1]. The value increase of the lot strongly suggests that the home was built after George W. Blue bought the land in 1901 and before the Fort Worth City Directory of 1901-1902 was published. This city directory shows that he ran a plastering business (Blue & Penewell) from the home at 1015 Cactus [1].

The same city directory also shows that F. G. Yarbrough was a carpenter, contractor, and builder living on 5th Avenue [3]. This suggests that F. G. Yarbrough could have built the home for George Blue as part of a land deal. The other obvious possibility is that George Blue built, or had the home built for his family.

During the Blue family occupancy, his daughter Mabel met Andrew Cowan, a young man living with his family across Washington Avenue [4]. The Blue family moved from the Cactus Home to College Avenue in 1906 [5], then Andrew and Mabel married in 1907 [4]. The newlyweds first moved a few houses South of the Cactus Home, across from some relatives [6], then over to College Avenue, next to the Blue family's new place [7]. Both of these homes are gone, replaced by new structures. George Blue went on to form a partnership with Fredrick M. Kuhlman, forming Kuhlman & Blue which had an office in the Flatiron Building in downtown Fort Worth from 1911 to 1915 [8, 9].

George W. Blue sold the Cactus Home in 1906 to John H. Hogg [1], and his family (G. (Gilbert?) Ora, Perry C., and probably wife, Sarah Ann Frances [Mills]) lived in the home from 1907 until 1908 [10], when they moved out and eventually rented the home to Henry O. Slack [11]. Henry was the proprietor of the Hydraulic Building Stone Company, which was located on the North side of the Trinity River, at the foot of the suspension bridge that crossed the river before the Paddock Viaduct was built. By 1910, the Slack family moved to the 1900 block of Washington [12] and later to Cameron, Texas with seven children [13].

The Baird Family Residence

Mrs. Ninnie Baird, her husband William Baird, and her eight children moved from 512 Hemphill and into the home on 1015 Cactus in 1910 [14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. I haven't been able to determine the exact date, but it's sometime after the census of 1910, which was taken on April 15 [19] in that area.

This move took place two years after the founding of Mrs. Baird's Bread in 1908. In the short period from 1910 to 1911, baking was done in the house on Cactus, then in a converted servant's house in the back, and then in a combination shed and storefront built by her landlord (probably John H. Hogg and his wife, Sarah A. F., since they owned the property at the time) after 1911 [20].

The family was living there when her husband passed away on December 20, 1911 [15, 16, 26]. She began to work up to sixteen hours day baking her bread, but somehow would occasionally find time to ride with her son, Hoyt, in the delivery carriage that was pulled by Ned, their horse. An interpretation of this carriage can be seen in the Baird's home painting by Budd Briggs.

In 1917, the family bought their first delivery car. It was a Ford that was customized into a delivery truck on which they painted, "Eat More Mrs. Baird's Bread" [15].

The Baird family moved out of the home by sometime in 1918.

After the Baird Family Leaves

Also by 1918, Fredrick M. Kuhlman (of the previously mentioned Kuhlman & Blue) moved into the house catty-corner from the Cactus Home, to 1728 Washington Ave [21]. Then by 1920, he moved across Cactus to the former Cowan home (of Andrew Cowan, mentioned above) and lived there many years, earning the home the name, Cowan-Kuhlman House [22].

In 1920, the Tuck family lived at the Cactus Home. The head of the house was Mary Elizabeth Tuck, widow of Thomas E Tuck. She had two sons with her. The 1920 Census shows them as Arthur (a confectionery salesman) and Ollie [23]. The Fort Worth City Directory shows the only other resident as Jas O Tuck, who worked as a clerk at La Beaume & Terrell [24].

Between 1918 and 1922, the home was expanded to the South, along Washington. Perhaps three rooms were added to the interior along with a porch on the West side, and another porch on the East side [25], which no longer exists. A Washington Avenue address was added and in the ensuing years, the house was rented out as a duplex. Depending on which side of the duplex you lived on, you either had a Cactus (or Jefferson) address, or a Washington address.

The home seems to have stayed in the Hogg family until 1936 and has since changed hands many times [1]. This Hogg family moved to Wise County, and then some descendants, to California [1]. The home has been occupied by at least ten distinct families from 1928 to 1951, beginning with the Hugh B. Edens family renting it for four years. In 1946, the two structures at 1801 and 1803 Washington Avenue were listed as the "Washington Rooms" and the "Coefficient Lodge" in the Fort Worth City Directory. While most families only lived in the home for a year or two before moving away, I've now been able to trace three families that lived there for five years or more. One for five years beginning in 1928, another for at least five years beginning in 1952, and the last one for about five years beginning around 1968. I've spoken with a member of the family that resided there in the 60's and she has verified the house was rented out as a duplex. By 1999, the home was extremely run down and was purchased for rehabilitation. This work was completed in about 2001, and the home was again rented out, nearly a hundred years later. Now, one hundred years after Mrs. Baird's Bread was founded, the home is once again occupied by its owners.

[1] Tarrant County Deed Records
[2] Fort Worth City Directories, 1901 through 1906
[3] Fort Worth City Directory, 1901-1902
[4] "Goodly Heritage: The Cowan Family" by Verna Hovey Cowan, p 174
[5] Need Reference Confirmation - Probably from Fort Worth City Directory, 1906-1907
[6] "Goodly Heritage: The Cowan Family" by Verna Hovey Cowan, p ???
[7] Census 1910, Fort Worth, Ward 8, District 134, entry for Andrew Cowan on College Ave., beginning on line 91.
[8] Fort Worth City Directories, 1900 through 1916
[9] Tarrant County Historic Resources Survey
[10] Fort Worth City Directory, 1907-1908
[11] Fort Worth City Directory, 1909-1910
[12] Census 1910, Fort Worth, Texas Ward 8, District 134, Page 4, Line 80
[13] Census 1920, Cameron, Texas, Justice Precinct 3, District 29, Pages 24-25, Line 93.
[14] Fort Worth City Directory, various editions from 1911 to 1918
[15] "Mother's Legacy Lives On", Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sunday, May 8, 1977
[16] "Tradition of Gift Loaf Will Be Kept as Mrs. Baird Celebrates Birthday", Fort Worth Star Telegram, Wednesday Morning, May 23, 1956
[17] "Sweetie Ladd's Historic Fort Worth", Sweetie Ladd, Cissy
Stewart Lale, Page 48
[18] "Page 6" from an unknown source
[19] United States Census of 1910, District 121, Ward 6
[20] See the "Location" Post
[21] Fort Worth City Directory, 1918
[22] Fort Worth City Directory, 1920
[23] Census 1920, Ward 8, District 132, Page 24
[24] Fort Worth City Directory, 1920
[25] Sanborn Fire Maps, Volume 4, 1927, p. 69
[26] Ancestry.com OneWorldTree
[27] Various Fort Worth City Directories

Location

2008-03-27T19:01:00.007-05:00

The home is located in Fort Worth, Texas, in the Fairmount Southside Historical District. It sits on the southeast corner of Washington Avenue and West Jefferson Avenue. In 1924, West Jefferson Avenue was named Cactus Street [1, 2, 3], and the home had the address of 1015 Cactus. At some point between 1918, when the Baird family moved out, and 1927 the home was expanded to the South, a new front door installed, and the address changed to Washington Avenue.

Baking was done in the home, then in a small shed that previously served as servant's quarters for the house [4, 5], then after 1911 - 1914, in a shed in the backyard built by her landlord, which had the address of 1811 Washington Ave [5, 6, 7]. The two sheds no longer exist, and the dates and exact locations of these sheds vary with the sources of information. There is no official 1811 Washington that I can find. There's an empty lot at 1807 Washington, and a new home at 1821 Washington. The 1927 Sanborn Fire Map shows 1811 and 1821 Washington at the same structure. Perhaps the shed was at the location of 1821 Washington.

[1] Sanborn Fire Maps, 1927, vol 4, page 69
[2] Fort Worth City Directory, unknown year.
[3] "Page 6" from an unknown document lists the name change as being in 1924.
[4] "Page 6" from an unknown document shows the bakery being in a "small house converted into a bakery - peel oven added" in 1910.
[5] "Mother's Legacy Lives On", Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sunday, May 8, 1977
[6] Fort Worth City Directories. 1914, 1916 and 1918 editions show the bakery at 1811 Washington Ave and the residence at 1015 Cactus.
[7] "Page 6" from an unknown document lists the bakery and retail shop being built in 1911.

Purpose

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These pages will be used to collect and document information about the home of Mrs. Ninnie Baird and her family from 1910 until 1918. The documentation may be verbal, official documents, or photographs of the home. Because the Baird family rented and lived in the home between 1910, two years after Mrs Baird's Bread was founded and 1918, when her first large bread factory opened on Sixth and Terrell, facts about the home are tough to locate. No tax or property records are to be found because the Bairds rented the home.

For the people that know Ninnie Baird lived in the little house at the corner of Cactus and Washington, it seems the fact should be common knowledge - that "everyone just knows". These people also seem to believe that it is very well documented that she lived there. There seems to be firm, but limited evidence of this:

Four Fort Worth City Directories (1911, 1914, 1916, and 1918)
Two Fort Worth Star-Telegram articles (1956, 1977)
A strong hint in a book
Text and a diagram from a document called "The Mrs Baird's Story"
A Texas State document
An article in The Dallas Morning News

But we're still trying to find more documentation of her residence at this house - especially any old photographs.

We are also attempting to share what we've found and to give an opportunity to others to contribute to this documentation. Contributions can also include corrections to any information I've listed. Newspaper articles and other documents will also be transcribed so they may more readily found through search engines.