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.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Mrs. Baird First Baked Bread in Kitchen Stove
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
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
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."
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."
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Brief History
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
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
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.
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
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:
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.
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
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.