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HomeMy WebLinkAboutDavid Mayo Oral History 02.11.1999 ** T HIS ORAL HISTORY HAS ONLY BEEN PARTIALLY TRANSCRIBED. TRANSCRIPTION WILL BE COMPLETED THIS SUMMER. A PORTION OF THE ORAL HISTORY SESSION FOLLOWS: DAVID MAYO ORAL HISTORY FEBRUARY 11, 1999 STAFF PRESENT: David Gerling, Special Facilities Superintendent; Pamela Einkauf, Senior Secretary Taping began after interview was already in progress. The road over there where Redmond Terrace is, is Dobrovolny's Dairy farm. David G.: Yes, I've heard that story. But anyhow, Northgate of course, it came about it was Boyette's farm I guess. Mr. Boyette was ?? but you need to talk to George Boyett. I worked over there a lot, and I know a lot about the area, but George is a better source for that area right there. The Tauber Addition, the two main streets are Tauber and Stasney -- Tauber and Stasney are family names. Tauber that was their farm, they owned the land, and it was developed into the Tauber Addition. And Stasney, I don't know the exact reason, they were another family name. As you get onto Southside, you know Dr. Clark did College Park, he had that cow -name thing. Then a lot of streets in cs were named after professors. You go into Colelge Hills and you see Kyle, Walton - he was president, you've got Harrington David G.: and that's all.... College Hills. Let's see this College Hills that was done by Culpepper. You need to talk to John Culpepper his dad is the one that developed all of that and it started back in the late 1930's. We did Carter's Grove - it was actually an extension - all that land used to belong to the Dansby's, which was the old original family. Richard Smith's wife is a Dansby. I think that's right. When Culpepper did this, Foster, and Walton and Kyle, and Milner, Harrington, Puryear, Francis, all of those were professors at the time. and a lot of those dorms or buildings on campus have those names too. Dominik - this street came about.... in 1960 we started Carter's Grove. Culpepper was the developer, I was the surveyor, and the Dominiks owned this, and we had to buy a piece of land. There were 3 Dominik brothers, Albert, Victor and Joe, that owned a strip of land between where Carter's Grove is and the property line right over here. Albert Dominik there was a house across where the bypass is now where he lived and this road... David G: Kind of where Green's World is Well, no Greensworld's way up here. This is more over there by the theater. The line runs between the theater and Varsity Ford. Dominiks' land went all the way to Carter's Creek and the Dansby's was just north of it. The Dansby's property went all the way to Booneville. We did this Carter's Grove, which as a matter of fact, this was and still is the largest subdivision that was done as a single unit in College Station. It was 212 lots in the first section and I don't think there's ever been another one since that's been done that way. It was a mistake because people lose interest in new subdivisions after awhile. You know they like to be here when you'l a working, and (they are) buying their Tots, and if you do it in smaller pieces and then do the next one, well it keeps... David G.: Kind of do it in phases.... But we did this all the way from Francis back to down here.... and these streets - originally when we made the original plat, Culpepper named this Easy Street. He said he always wanted to live on Easy Street. Later Mrs. Culpepper came back and changed these names. She got a theme from Virginia plantations, like Carter's grove was a plantation of a governor.... David G: in Virginia.... ....and I think Westover and Berkley, and Merry Oaks all were. You can confirm that with John Culpepper. He would know. Neal Pickett was head of the FHA office in Houston. This was an FHA approved subdivision. That was a real political thing. David G.: I guess. Tarrow Street is still part of that Virginia theme. Dominik was named after the Dominiks that owned this land right here. This right here, you come back over, we took a big section - Dr. T.O. Walton and Jim O'Brian, bought a peice of land out of what was College Hills Woodland Estates from Munson back to where Carter's Grove starts. They were some real big lots, you know 500 - 600 feet deep. They were platted, and when Munson was put through that was the end of the world. It was platted all the way back to the end of the present property as big lots and we subdivided later. We came in here and there were two Tots where Rose... what's the name.... Sweetbriar Addition - and the reason it got that name - there was a professor, and I can't remember his name, that lived out there and grew roses. He experimented and the whole place - the interior of it was cleared off and it was covered.... Pam: Professor Bassey? It may have been, may have been, I can't really remember. I remember the man because I spent a lot of time out there with him but I got some of those roses form him when we were doing that and took them home. But Rose Circle was named for that and Sweetbriar was the addition. Mrs. T.O. Walton thought that up. Okay, this little section right here where Hope Street is, that was Dr. O.M. Hope. He used to be mayor of cs and that was his little addition we did and that street was... that over here, this area, Culpepper did this section here. Culpepper Plaza, University Oaks, all this was the Dominik land. I was not the engineer or the surveyor on that. Harry Sebeck (sp ?) built these first apts. Plantation Oaks and you can see what kind of theme they used - that Southern theme. This Olympia Way was when they built the Sorority Houses. David G.: Kind of the Greek theme. Now Harry Sebeck, he's Gary Sebeck's dad? Uh hum. He came in here in the late '60's and he buit that with Culpepper and he bult the Doux Chene over there David G: On 2818. On Bill Fitch's property. He built some houses and what not. David G: Okay now, there are some streets in here like Woodlawn, and Marstellar. Okay Marstellar was a name of a professor. Woodlawn that was Culpepper just .... That Woodland Parkway - there was a drain through here and both sides of that is Woodland parkway. It's just woodlands and that's where the name is from. David G: In fact, I think the back side of it is wooded park... It's a park, there's a park in there. And right here, they never put this bridge across, but this part from here up, is developed. And this is just still natural. David G.: In fact, I think I heard a story that when this was all surveyed it was done in metes and bounds? You mean the lots? David G.: What's the old way of surveying? Is it with links and chains? (Gary) Halter was telling us. Well, that was done in the forties so you didn't have modern electronic equipment come in until...I think I got the first electronic measuring instrument in the state in 1969. As a matter of fact it was the second one - two came to the United States and I got one of them in '69 - we started using electronic measuring equipment. We had some electronic caluculators a little bit before that, but they didn't get real popular until 1970, 1971. So say everything prior to 1970 - the surveying was done pretty much the same way it was done for 50 -75 years so, but they still drew a plat just like they do today. It wasn't in the city when that was done. The city didn't take that in til years afterwards. David G.: Is that possibly why the city building department doesn't have any record of it? Well, now you've got to understand, when I first started working - when I really started full time around here, that's in 1960 - the city hall was over there on Church Street and Wellborn Road where Cafe Eccell is. Rand Boswell was the city manager, Florence Neeley was the secretary, Diane Jones was the clerk at the utilities window, Laurie Delaney was in charge of all the utilities There were 3 policemen, and 1 full -time employee in what is now engineering and planning - George Fullworth (sp ?). There was a crew that worked out - I mean they did everything -they didn't have separate electric, water, sewer people. There were some that were more skilled in some areas, but they just did what they had to do. And so, at that time you know, the city force was not all that many people. There was a subdivision ordinance - 210 - was passed, I guess, in the 1950's. It was the first subdivision control ordinance. It said you've got to make a plat and it said you've got to do certain things. It had some requirements as to what kind of streets. They started requiring curb and gutters. That's when Dr. Clark said he wasn't going to do anymore subdivisions if they made him put curb and gutter in. So he sold the Knoll - South Knoll, which was just partially developed. Dr. Clark sold it out to some other people, because he didn't want to put up with all the new rules. Then we started preparing plans for streets and water and sewer. Before that the city put in a lot of that stuff - the city forces, but they'd just go out and extend the water and sewer lines as the houses were put in. They kept notes in file folders, but they didn't have plans. So what we have done over the years on some of that old stuff, like several years ago, we were doing some work over in College Hills Woodlands sewer rehabilitation. I was doing the survey and the city engineers were doing engineering work and Henry and I were out there doing data collecting in the field, drawing up everything and tallking to all the people and we were trying to locate all the old sewer lines. We had talked to Benny Luedke who had worked for the city since early 1950's and he later got to be head of the sewer department before he retired. Benny knew more than anybody at the time. I went to talk to him and he said that was before his time and to go talk to Alfred Miller. At that time Alfred Miller was director of public works. Alfred had been around back in the 1940's and had worked on some of that and then he got drafted and had to go to Korea, and Benny kind of took over his place while he was gone. So between those two, and there was an old guy, he's been dead, a guy named Socks Watson, that we used to go to, he'd been working since the city of College Station started, and when we couldn't find some of that old stuff, we'd go talk to him and he'd tell us where it was. Like now, we've been working over at Northgate on the parking garage site, the only way we can figure out what's over there is we get the city crew to take a back -hoe over there and dig it up. David G: Oh, and if you hit it you know it's there. Well, we probe and they now run tv cameras underground in the sewer to figure out where they go. and put smoke in them and see what comes up through the cracks. But still the only way we know how deep it is or really where it is, in those older areas like Northgate - or they're redoing a lot of lines in College Hills right now - the only way you really know is to just dig them up and find them. They didn't have all the record - keeping - that's evolved since the 1960's. Especially like College Hills Woodlands that was developed as a rural subdivision - the county had no rules. Nobody kept any records, somebody had to remember where it was that was the only way. There's still a lot of that even on campus, you just have to talk to somebody that's still around. Getting back to the street thing - this area north of Lincoln avenue - Lincoln Avenue, I don't really know how that name came about. This old subdivision, the D.A. Smith Subdivision, is a piece of property that goes back to just past Pasler Street... ?? Cooner Addition over there I think, and it was done way back in the early 1900's berfore there was any College Station. The way the plat was drawn up is just kind of an accident. Somebody did a hand sketch, somebody just drew up a sketch of the D.A. Smith Subdivision and attached it to the deed to show where their lot was. And they put dimensions on all of it, and that's what we had to go by. We've had to redo a lot of it. Pasler Street is named after a person. Nimitz - okay Mr. Ringhaufer did a subdivision called the Ringhaufer Addition it crosses what - well it's always been called University Drive, but this has been called University Drive, this was called Sulphur Springs Road at one time, and so was this right here (pointing to the map). Eisenhower, Nimitz, and McArthur, Mr. Ringhoffer he came here after World War I from Austria or Hungary or somewhere. I never will forget, I used to go up to Louis May's store up there at the corner of University.... David G.: Right there where U- Rent -M is? Well they took out a good part of that when they widened both those streets. I used to go up there and drink beer after work and Mr. Ringhaufer and this other old guy - I can't remember his name now - used to drink beer up there, and they'd get to drinking and they'd start refighting World War I. In World War I, one of them was on one side, and one was on the other. Mr. Ringhaufer did that subdivision and it was during WW II, I guess, and that was why it was named after generals and admirals. Cooner is a family name. The Cooners used to own that right there. Jane Street - that was named after someone's daughter or wife. David G.: Over in the black section of town... Okay, I'll tell you something about this. This was never really an official plat. This little piece of property that goes generally along this line, part of this belongs to Bryan - the city of Bryan bought this for sewer line, well the line went across here and down right by Lincoln and back to here somewhere and it was Putz property. Ms. Fanny Putz was a Luza. The Luza's used to own all that land back there. Ms. Putz inherited that land there and they, the Putz's, developed that little piece call Prairie View Heights and platted a little road along here and it was called University Drive. Well the State extended this street and they renamed it University Drive. We had extended 29th Street. When the State changed it from University Drive, they renamed it Tarrow Street after the principal of Lincoln High School. The way Tarrow Street on this side which is an extension of 29th Street, the way it got to be configured like it is - we brought a water line in from Bryan once upon a time, and this was the route and it was just across some pasture they negotiated and when we layed Tarrow Street which was after the water line was in, they wanted us to use the same right -of -way so it wouldn't damage property much. Later when they built the Fed Mart store they re- routed that line around. Dansby property went all the way to Harvey Road and all way back to Carter's Creek. Generally where Texas Avenue runs is a line along one of the original survey lines. Richard Carter's league which went on up