LutherJonesOralHistory 012604INTERVIEWEE: Luther G. Jones
INTERVIEWER: Charles R. Schultz
PLACE:
TIME:
DATE:
1:30 p.m.
August 22, 1974
TEXAS A &M UNIVERSITY
Oral Histroy Report
SUBJECT: Interviewee's autobiography with emphasis on life as a
student at Texas A &M
CRS: First, Dr. Jones, tell us something about your early life, including
the names and dates and places of births of your parents; something about
your parents, if you can remember, and then the place and date of your
birth, and the schools you attended before you went off to college.
LGJ: Starting in with my parents; Father was born almost in Galveston.
It happened early in New York City, and his mother had to get down to
aracader`.
to get into Galveston, where my grandfather, who went to Cilveston in
1838 igg watchmaker, held forth as a defense captain. She was on a
sailing vessel and got into port and they couldn't find him. Finally,
they looked around and found that(in those days, they wore the hooped
skirt) he was under the hooped skirt. And the life during the Civil War
was rather uneventful, but after that, the family, his family, father's
family, moved up into Saratoga, New York, where he had some property and
whendgv rather got old enough, he went to a college, what was a small
Presbyterian college in Princeton, New Jersey. As soon as he got out, he
came into Texas, because he couldn't get Galveston out of his mi.nei. But,
the competition was so heavy, that he went up to San Marcos, in 1883,
2
LGJ: and opened up what was very rare in those days, an ice making
machinery(.e -ice factory. Where they had to distill water in order to
get it to freeze quick enough, because thel ✓ condensing process wasn't
what it became later. He went from there with a friend called Frank Ball
of Galveston, into Temple, in 1887, and opened up the Temple National Bank
where he was president and part owner, and he kept on there. He helped
open up the First National Bank of McGre0. Shortly after than, he married
in 1889, the daughter of the President of' Baylor Female College, which had
just pr. iouo1yy moved from Old Independence in Washington County up to
Belton, Texas. In 1894, I was born, in a town of about 3200, which later
friends that we had in other states said I was born with the blackland,
praire dirt between my toejThey called it mud. I was able to be in a
neighborhood where the boys were pretty well schooled with catch-as- catch-
can type of living. I learned to pick cotton, learned to chop cotton,
learned to herd cows, Father took up a little ranch in New Mexico, - 4
continued to live in Temple. By virtue of getting a scholarship, I was
able to go to Princeton in 1913, graduated in 1917, in time
to get into the 10th Engineers.
CRS: What was your major at Princeton?
LGJ: Geology
CRS: How did you happen to pick that field?
LGJ: Due to Father. He was, they called him a Forest Enthusiast; +r
called him a forest nut, and the intermediates called him a consery on
something. Because whenever they'd�e- Tn in Bell County, tie`mu� ter " ". a,
would run ..down,_somebodv _11, 11, call him up and say, "Jones, Bell ,? i
"`County is washing into the GulNLIA Temple is on a branch of the Leon
which goes into the Little River, which • :es into the Brazos, which is,
recorded history because in, I believe it was either 1921, or 1919, the
Little River rose to such an extent that the Braozs River ran up hill, from
/4 place Xrest of Hearn ;� ) on the Brazos where it runs over the rocks, uphil
nd many of the local settlers in that area thought the earth has come to
an end, because the river was running up hill. But, he was familiar with
all that history, he passed it on to us. Then after the first World War,
I was then transfered into the service of the rear where I'd come in close
contact with what Europe did with their conservation work with forests.
Was able to get a job under Mr. Siecke, at A &M.
CRS: You did serve in Europe then, during the first World War?
LGJ: 18 months.
CRS: 18 months. What area?
LGJ: Mostly, from the standpoint of survival, in the service of the rear,
in the production of railroad ties, and stakes for the front, and narrow
gauge equipment, and temporary huts for use at the front, and was able and
was fortnuate enought to get on a logging crew with Minnesota lumberjacks.
Where in spite of my size, I held my own in a four man crew on daily product
CRS: So, I would guess from what you've said at that point Western Europe
was somewhat ahead of us in conservation?
6'L - . - - r.L.
LGJ: His father who had married a German Girl, in 1890, my grandfather,
had taken my father into the forest of Germany just as a matter of interest
to study the Schwartzfalt, The Black Forest. And he became a forest en-
thusiast and was appointed the first individual in Texas to study the extent
of the forest area of East Texas, some 21,000 acres, I think. As a result
of that, he was able to get, with the aid/ of Dr. Bizzell, who helped him
compose the ticket, he was able to get Jim Ferguson to create a State
Department of Forestry in 1914.
CRS: Was your father appointed to study the forestay area of Texas by
the State of Texas?
LGJ: No, by the National Forest Service.
CRS: The U. S. Forest Service.
LGJ: Without stipend. And he was that enthusiastic, he used his own funds
to canvas the 1.d 4slature and against odds, such as one of the legislatures
says, "Jones, what are you going to make out of this? If it's passed, this
Bill on Forestry ?" But, he didn't make anything out of it. In fact, he gave
to it. But, with that interest, he thought that maybe it would be a good
thing if maybe I went into that.Siecke gave me a job in charge of the
so- called Forest Fire Prevention Work in 1919. I was able in the First
Division to get out in April, 1919. And, I got quite interested in
began to see the advantage of a background in agriculture, got an assistant-
ship under Dr. J. 0. Morgan, Head of the Department of Agronomy...
CRS: Here at Texas A &M?
e fal of 1919, and another assistants p .ue to av ng
written some editorials, and letters to the people in Houston, in the Tribune,
on the defense of the YMCA. It was right in the f st World War. So, I
served as ssistant secretary of the "Y" and also as Dire assistant of
Agronomy 1'9`19 to 1921. Became a General Secretary of the YMCA in '21
to '22, then got wander lust and started teaching in Houston in mathematics
in '23, and came back to teach under Dr. Humbert, in freshman chemistry in
fall of 1923. Which was quite a varied back ground.
CRS: Yes, it was.
CRS: There had not been one before, I take it?
3
LGJ: I organized the wrestling team here in the fall of 1919 just out of
having created general interes from a man as small as I was to make a
public demonstration for the Club with Oscar Frazier who was a middle
weight. It interested the students enough to ask for a team.
LGJ: No, there had been some interest in it, but we didn't even have mats.
and we were able, through various meant to get some mats, and in the old
chapel, we had our workout place, and for three years, we had a :recognized
varsity team. And tied Oklahoma A &M in the Spring of 1922 we got three
Bats, they got three firsts T. U. got one first.
h '
CRS: When you started your classes at A &M for your master's, did you
then leave the employment of the forest service?
LGJ: Yes.
CRS: So, you said, you were an assistant in Agronomy? Plus assistant
secretary of the Y, so you had in a sense two jobs plus taking courses?
LGJ: If I'd been any better, had devoted more time to wrestling, as a T,
as a letter sport, I mean as a letter sport, it would have remained, but,
we didn't give it enough' time after that first three years.
CRS: You indicated that you taught chemistry for one year. Did you have
some chemistry background when you were working on your bachelor's, I take
it?
LGJ: Yessir, on both the bachelors and the masters degree.
CRS: I believe, I picked up in the newspaper somewhere that you organized
a Boy Scout troop in 1923?
LGJ: Yeah, we organized a Boy Scout troop in College Station, and outside
of three months, the first orb in the county. Judge Baron beat me to having
the first one in the county.
CRS: I gather then at that point that certainly most of the boys must have
been childred of faculty members?
LGJ: Yes.
CRS: Had you been a Boy Scout in your younger life?
4
LGJ: No, I had seen the first Boy Scouts organized in, I think 1921. It
wasn't too old, prior to that. It was brought over from England. We had
two scout organizations ` that time. One survived, Boy Scouts of America.
O � i "_ .y
CRS: I gather that you left the campus retty soon after that didn't
you, to go ono Cornell for your Doctora
LGJ: Yes, I had a friend who was also named Jones, the boys called him
Had'In Jones was B. C. Jones, the late B. C. Jones, died two years
�1 ago. o was a good friend in chemistry. I had tought a year in Houston,
at Central High, enjoyed teaching so much, 4if he said, "you'd never get
anywhere, unless you go on and do graduate work for a docto at (Agree.
I took that advice and entered Cornell University with a scholarship.
CRS: Let's talk a little bit more about your masters work at A &M. At
that oint, of course, this was prior to the creation of the graduate
school who awarded your degree?
SGJ: Dr. J. 0. Morgan was head of t: agronomy, and was also a graduate
of Cornell and a very able and enthusiastic advisor; and he gave me a lot
of boost in my research work of all things, in buckwheat, Ss which economiCa;
didn't fit this climate enought to become a major factor.
CRS: That was the research for your dissertation?
LGH: Yes sir. Here at A &M.
CRS: But, was your degree, then I take it would have come from the College
of Agriculture, rather than, since there was no Graduate School?
LGJ: Yes sir, Dean Puryear/ I had several very pleasant aquaintantships,
as Dr. Fraps, in the chemical work that I did.
5
CRS: Did you have to do a proposal for your dissertation?
LGJ: And Dr. Hedges, of course.
CRS: Did you have to do a written proposal for your thesis work?
LGH: Yes sir. But, for the masters, I idn't have to pass any language.
But, having learned German, from the ti e I was sever) years old, it helped
me quite a bit, in my language requirement at Cornell. And the French
in the army helped quite a bit in the two language requirement, at that time.
CRS: Your thesis proposal then, who would (s bmit that to, y*Rims- head of
the Agronomy Department?
LGJ: Yes, it was to go to Casper Allen Wood, who in turn, well we had
Mr. Casper Allen Wood, and Dr. J. 0. Morgan, as the two advisors on it
and for the minor, Dr. C. C. Hedges.
CRS: I was aware that you had your misters from here, and I checked, and
we do have a copy of your thesis back 4 'iles. It's still there with all
the prictures in it yet. Was one of your facu1y members here some influence
LGH: Dr. Morgan. It wasn't too easy at that time to get a fellowship,
but Dr. Morgan was very 094ful in getting his personal friends, Dr. T.
Nelson Lion, Dr. Harry 0. Buckman to get me into Cornell.
CRS: And they, did you continue with agronomy at that point?
LGJ: Yes sir, we called it later, Soil Science.
CRS: So, did you have some arrangement whereby you could come back to
A &M after you completed you degree, or was it sort of by accident that
you were able to come back?
LGH: Dr. Morgan said he would like to have me on the staff. But, that's
as far as it went. At that time, in that summer I started out at the University
or uoiorado, where incidently I met my wife in £he summer of '24. I took
physical chemistry there, and differential and integral equations and
calculus there, and finally, with all that chemistrAr seemed to offer then,
I decided to take Dr. Morgan's, and Jone's advice and take agronomy. On the
way East, I sold my car in Boulder and on my way East, I stopped at the
University of Nebraska, University of Minnesota, Wisconsin U., the
University of Illinois, and the University of Ohio, to Columbia, and Yale,
LGJ: to see what I might like there. I had a cousin, my father's cousin,
at Yale, but, I had too many antipathies from undergraduate work. But,
I woutnd up at a place, the only place where I had lost my honors for
an intercollegiate championship to a Cornellan. But, that's where I
decided to stay. They wouldn't promise me a thing as to the line of time
to take to get a graduate degree, at all. But, they did take me on, I
was happy to say.
:CRS: And so, you were there what, four years?
LGJ: Three.
CRS: Three.
LGJ: Counting the summers it was three years.
CRS: At wek44h time you had the doctors degree then?
LGJ: I had to do a little extra, afterwards, but confirmed the degree in
'27.
CRS: O.K. Then you came here in '26?
LGJ: Yessir.
CRS: Back to the Agronomy Department?
LGJ: Yessir.
CRS: Were you appointed what, /an instructor? Or did you have a higher
ranking than that?
LGJ: Dr. Morgan gave me a tentative professorhip, which later under
Dean Kyle was verified as a professor. The highest I got ever was dwr
Acting Head. And I may honestly say, that's as much as I ever deserved.
CRS: You were Acting Head of thel4gronomy department?
LGJ: Yes sir. For two sessions. First in 1933, and the second time in
1944.
CRS: The Agronomy Department retained that same name, as agronomy, the
whole time you were in it, '26 through '52?
LGJ: Yes, through '52.
CRS: It was later that it became soil and crop sciences section within that?
O.K., what courses did you teach in agronmy? n 3,�,
�
LGJ: One of my raduete students who worked with me and we'started the
first course in soil conservation in 193 6 Ray Thompson, who is now the
Associate Dean at Iowa State University. I taught the course in Soil Con—
servation, general soils, which while I was in A &M as a teacher was required,
two graduate courses,$oil technology, and soil management. And I filled
during the depression in helping Professor Megford in 105 ,A
crops.
CRS: Did you have a number of graduate students working under you at
different times?
LGJ: Yes, we had the captain of the track team Emmons, for the time
being it slips me. Schultz, from Houston County. kt €srtr,''to say, `e' ..+%„id
M p}rat Houston isn't in Houston County. .,Dan ko with my help we '* V
started one on the transportation ofae_ ratio of cotton. And, I "''A"`-
regret, exceedingly we didn't publish the results. There were some
unfortunate occur ences. We did three years of work on that, we used a
w 55 gallon drutojthem for replecations, and found that water require-
ments in the cotton plant is about 105, but we never did publish it.
CRS: The water requirement?
LGJ: The water requirement of a
of water for ever1Jcotton plant.
toomucth work on that particular
able graduate student. But, due
to finish his work, and I didn't
CRS: Was this discovery that you made, as to the amount of water necessary,
I guess what, to produce a pound of cotton?
LGJ: Yes, that is the whole plant.
CRS: The whole plant.
LGJ: Including the very minor lint received.
cotton plant, it means it takes 105 lbs
Which at that time was, we didn't find
specific problem. He was a very remark -
to unfortunate circumstances, didn't get
either.
CRS: O.K. This would be what, helpful to people in determining to how
much water to use for 4rrigation?
CRS: Does the type of soil have any bearing on it?
LGJ: The physical condition of the soil would be important.
CRS: By that you mean the amount of humus in the soil?
1
,r
r
LGJ: It is used, but in the Rio Grande Valley, they through trial and
error, they found approximately that amount. It varies of course, according
to the relative humidity.
LGJ: Well, if it's a sandy loam over a clay, or a sandy loam over a
sandy clay Thi._4 of had been referred to as what the Lord put here
to tie the black land prairies East Texas sand)1andi of our
impervious clay subsoil. !!
CRS: While you were on the teaching faculty did you also do some individual
research on your own, that is other than assisting graduate students with
their research?
LGJ: In my first years, I was president of the science seminar, then
later the social science s ninar. I did a little bit of writing, but
in productive research where we use the biometrical methods to determine
the quality of it, I was assistant with Dr. Ralph Stewart and Dr.
Reeves in working on certain ecological plant relationships. One of them,
the Bull Nettle, where my main interest was, was where you found the Bull
Nettle, you'd find the deep sandy soil. And otherwise, the value at the
Bull Nettle might produce in making Tapioca, through that enormous subsurface
growth. But outside of one article in the Journal of the American Society
of Agronomy, I didn't do any.
CRS: You did do a lot of supervising of research?
LGJ: Quite a bit. I was admitted to the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and Texas. I was made a fellow in the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow in the Texas
Scientific Association, but I didn't finish what I started.
CRS: What was your average teaching load?
LG.L:. o urs
CRS: Eighteen hours, which meant that there was not a whole lot of time
for research.
LGJ: To be a good teacher, using Watergate terminology, from my
view, a man ought not to have in soil science more than 25 to 30 students
at one time, in one class. Both from the pleasure of teaching standpoint,
and the communication with the students standpoint. Where you lecture to
classes of 65 - 140, you lose part of that personal relationship.
CRS: I would certainly think-
LGJ: Yes sir.
LGJ: Some of the pleasantest classes I had was when we were crowded,
and I had classes of 25 - 30, in the top deck of Goodwin Hall, where I
could remember every boy's name and his face and his background.
CRS: The size of the class I take it was limited by the size of the room.
CRS: I believe I remember having seen a clipping about you that indicated
that as of a certain date, and I guess it was about your retirement time,
that you had at one time or another had about 95% of the agronomy graduates
in one of your courses.
LGJ: Yes sir, that was in advanced soil management. The background here
at A &M, coming here from Ithaca,-4— 11..1, ay to teach, I had tc� ¢ice_..
up my, what I had begun on Long Island, as soirs`urveyor, which Dr. Lion
said, I really needed. Dr. W. T. Carter who held the position of the
division of Soil Survey for the State of Texas, d... zg iced
fine soil mape of Texas, and the discussion and descriptions of the soil
types, and soil series of Texas. He took me in hand and not only took me;
but took my graduate students and me into the major soil divisions of
Texas. And conducted our investigation of the main soil regions, and
which was the�,,,, �v�e recognized in 1926, the soil profile,
'27 and right on up ��'D'1934 when we had a soil Science, and in the federal
branch in 1935, changed to Soil Conservation Service. Soil Errosion
Service for one year, and then changed to soil conservation
....
the cooperation and suggestion of)ean Kyle andt'Marrow,LewA T. Marrow 7„
was able to spend the summer 041. 1934 in the Soil Conservation Service,
near Tyler, in Smith County. In the summer of 1930, the depression was
being felt pretty strongly at A &M and most teachers took a cut of around
30 %, and our second child was born that year, and due to family background,
I took my wife to Temple to give birth to the child, Scott and White Hospital
and drove over to College Station twice a week, to help Dr. J. 0. Morgan on
..t• .-my. laboratory. Dr. Morgan was then begir?}}ping to feel the results of his
night- and -day work when he _:..._ *_e worlEtdn his Ph.D. at Cornell. He got
tooth trouble and died later in '33. And then the job was offered at
Prairie View, teaching soils there, which I was very glad to have in
that summer of 1930. When I came back, Fred Hale, who was meat cutting
man, and animal husbandry expert, looked at my hands and said, "Well,
Luther, you haven't turned black yet. ".
CRS: When you were on the faculty, say from '27 on, did you live on
campus? In campus housing?
LGJ: In i 26 - 27, we rented one of the new houses from Dr. (ReidiClark's
College Station Development Association, south of campus. In the fall
of '27, Thomas F. Mayo, Libarian, encouraged my wife and me to sublet his
house on the campus next to the hospital. In the fall of '28, the faculty
committee on housing wanted us to rent a house behind what was in the
.6 §tadium, next to P�foessor Ness. Had some valuable association in
those years.
..�s '� "` ,i+ir�iiiWlii • "'•` "" _ .�iliWil�� � y -'viWzria • , � , `4i�i�I1�YfIliYli
CRS: Was the steel stadium located in the same place as the current Kyle
Field?
LGJ: Yes. And when it was dismantled, in the summer of '29, then they
moved our house down to a place looking upon the beginning of the hundred
yard dash, what was then the hundred yard dash, straightaway.
CRS: What type of house were you in?
LGJ: Frame house which had previously been part of the old hospital.
The other half was the one that had been used on the campus, by Dr. Mayo.
CRS: Did you continue to live on campus through all of your teaching career,
or what point did you move off?
LGJ: 4-lived on the campus ii 41 the rule came up in 1941, that nobody,
be he dean or be he instructor, should continue to live on the campus,
in Irke4 campus house. We built a house then, in our present location in
a five-acre tract, later a 26- -acre tract, which we developed.
CRS: Was that '41 or '51?
1 0
LGJ: 4441.
CRS: But, there were still houses on the campus, for a good long while.
LGJ: Yes, for a certain group, such as the electricians, and the librarian.;
the sewer, and the physical, such as required night work.
CRS: They were primarily staff instead of faculty.
LGJ: Yes sir.
CRS: Was there a considerable amount of socializing among the families
who lived in those houses?
LGJ: Quit so. A &M, even then, was the most pleasant places that
I had ever been. In fact, when I got out of the army and came down and
rented a room in the YMCA and looked out of the back room onto Military
Walk, and saw the students doing sitting up exercises, at 7 a.m., I
decided that this was the place that I wanted to be m r future.
CRS: In speaking of housing, I am reminded ofqf question I meant to ask
you earlier. While you were working on your masters at Texas A &M in what
1919, and '20 and '21, where did you live at that point?
LGJ: Getting out of the army until the fall of 1919, I lived in the
old Shirley Hotel, which wer two frame buildings and offered not only
housing, but good food. The Shirley Hotel was torn down later to make
was for the Aggieland Inn. In the f ll of 1919, in September, I was able
to get into Milner Hall, with W. Wiliam P. Derick, who later became
animal husbandry chief at Nebraska University. And I had to o from there
year graduate second ear in radu work and lived in Leggett Ha
11 Where we found
entirely free of anything that might molest sleep Milner Hall was always
a delightful dormitory to me, from my view .
tc. •
CRS: Were there all graduate students living in Milner Hall?
LGJ: it was mixed then.
CRS: What about when you moved to Leggett? Was it also mixed?
LGJ: Mostly undergraduates, but my
too. Later I went to Brazil for the Presbyterian Church to in duce
agronomy work in Brazil.
CRS: Where did you have your meals?
LGJ: We were fortunate to be able to eat in Sbisa Hall.
CRS: But, I take it sincerou were not military, you did not have to march
in with the corps.
LGJ: No sir, we ate with what they called the Civilians, they didn't
call them civilians, they called them another name then.
roommate there was a graduate student
L
CRS: At one point, they called them casuals.
LGJ: Casuals, yeah.
CRS: So, you had a separate dining area within Sbisa for meals.
LGJ: Yes sir.
CRS:
you se
CRS: You mentioned that you only had one road.
elieve, I picked up fAm a newspaper clipping in our fi�ls that
ed a number of years on the College Station City Council.
11
LGJ: Yes sir, I was on t e initial organization. Where we met in the
Chemistry Building lectur oom in, the best of my recollection in October
19, 1938. It was either t eSpring or Fall of 1938. We resolved that we
didn't have but one road to get to Bryan, and I had been appointed to the
committee, to see if we could get what ollege Main Street; -• .t
graveled,we could get to Bryan easier. And the County Judge says,
"Where is the money coming from ?" and I said, "From the county sources
or perhaps Bryan can furnish a little to help get that trade into Bryan. ".
He $aid, "We can't spend money on that." So, we met, we got together, and
said we needed another gorcery store, we had one Luke Patranella and
Charlie's at Northgate, then, and organized the City of College Station
and without pay for anybody, John Henry Benny was the mayor, Will Varga
the City Attorney, and we gave Jack Floyd, the tinction of being
deputy. We each forked up a little and got a deposit in the bank of 70` "�.�w
dollars. " -
LGJ: That didn't exist. That came into existence under Chancelor Gilchrist.
And I remember that distinctly, because I was on the advisory committees
and the county wanted to build a road to directly enter from what is now.... f
Bizzell Street, and Mr. Gilchrist, stated that" might not fit too well � �°¢�
into the campus plans that were already made. and it was opened up then
into the present location. It almost coincides. I was also on the school
board of Consolidated School, I think in the year of 1939. D. B. Coferg".,,./
John Mitchell, decided that we needed to have a school outside of the
A &M campus which was meeting then in old Pfeuffer Hall, and that wooded
building adjacent to it. And he made the rounds from different people,
to try to get enought to buy a little iece of land where we could have
school. And at that time, amon my o her activities, I was one of z�,�- -■i. —
competitors for the Open Han all competition we held for a /championship,
LGJ: We had to go and follow the railroad track, on what is now called
Old College Road.
- r�/Yr�J.i'Bii�.�� .*M'. _ ..- M"a.r�i_..i�',it ix: -� ..... - ..� ._•' - -may 444,
CRS: and that's the one that you wanted to have graveled?
LGJ: We had a piece of, yes, we wanted that road graveled. Because what
is now College Main didn't extend beyond what is now the complex of apartment
houses about 200 yprds.
CRS: That is the four —1 portion of College Main that runs between
Skaggs - Albertsons and the College View Apartments?
c
LGJ: and Mr. Cofer, and Mr. Mitchell walked all the way dwon to the old
handball courts which were in that wooden building and asked me if
I would contribute to buying that old piece of ground. I think I gave
them, what was then, was we thought was the end of the depression, $200.00.
Mr. Cashion, that was treasurer and went over and bought that piece of land
from the Dobrovolnies and the Holicks.
CRS: That was where?
LGJ: Where the orignial school is now.
CRS: It was what where the three story brick building is that faces Jersey
Street?
LGJ: Yes sir. It's not three stories through, is it?
CRS: Two.
LGJ: It does well to be a good one and half.
CRS: Well, it was the middle school a couple of years ago, now the middle
school has moved across the street where the high school used to be, by
the football stadium there.
LGJ: That's
CRS: Where?
out first teaching place was.
12
LGJ: The so—called hunk of land going out Bizzell Street into Jersey, you
come right into what was the first piece of land for the school. And
sidewalkciDrz &*t allowed to volunt4er to put in the pavement for the
�'�unafe o "sand . -I* did a.,,.,wt - V =. works =fie
Youpon an other shrubs. There was a whole lot of community feeling in
those days.
CRS: At that point, I would say probably everybody whose children went
to that school was either a faculty or staff member at Texas A &M?
LGJ: I believe it was, yes sir. That's right, faculty or staff members.
That's a good way to put it. There was some folks from the dairies, there
were certain dairy families. Milk production families, their children went
to Consolidated.
CRS: You mentioned something about either getting the road paved to Bryan
or else having to have another grocery store. Did you get that other
grocery store?
LGJ: We would up having a grocery store on, or we didn't wind up, we had
alread inveigled the faculty, I mean the management of the Department of
Physical Plants, to put in a store right next to Milner Hall. And they
did big business. It was very conVentient and helpful, and the other
grovery store that we were talking about was at .Southgate, and resulted
from that incorporation, as a incorporated municipality.
CRS: This store that was on the campus, how long was that in existence?
LGJ: About 10 years.
CRS: Did that start in '38 or '39?
LGJ: It was in the '30's.
LGJ: Yessir, and bought from wholesale from what was then the Howell
Wholesale Grocery.
13
CRS: It was in the 30's, then it started. So, it carried a general line
of groceries.
CRS: I would have tbrpo4gh.t h would have been a unique sort of situation.
LGJ: It was ii3eed unique.
CRS: Where the college would run its own., ,
LGJ: Well, the college really did' have / an i rect control over t he lease.
But, it was put in for the help of the faculty. And I was one of it
Pete Butler and Burgess and Mr. (the printer) we needed also a place where a
man could cash checks, at odd hours, which was then odd hours, and we put
in for that pufpose, organized a little State Bank in 1946.
CRS: Where was it located?
LGJ: It was located in a wooden shack behind where Homer Adams has his
insurance store.
.
CRS : ° What became of that - cank ?`
LGJ: It is now the University National Bank.
CRS: It became the University National Bank?
LGJ: We had on the campus, we thought Ide P. Trotter wee president, and
I resulted in assistant to the clerk. And e had a faculty loan and
discount organization on the campus, and we ot together and organized that
bank. We allowed the bank to buy up that little faculty loan association.
'fie I get a mental block now and then. The only ing I c remember
is Dr. Ide P. Trotter and I, *as his assistant, hadlose but, and
Mrs. Bower was also one of the last to give up.
CRS: That was for your loan association, faculty loan association.
sold that'out to the University National Bank?
LGJ: Yes.
You
CRS: Was that always its name, or did it have!.
LGJ: It started out as the College Station State Bank in 1946. We had,
which you may not want, we had an up- and -down Walleidascopic career far
the first five years, which you might have heard of.
CRS: No, I hadn't heard anything.
CRS: I take it you have continued your connection with the University
National Bank?
CRS: You're still on the Board of Directors at the bank?
LGJ: At the age of 80.
CRS: But, you were one -of ---the founders of it.
LGJ: Yeah, I was the first president of it.
CRS: I see.
LGJ: Because they couldn't get anybody else to take it.
CRS: Back a little bit to your service on the city council, the city
of College Station, I believe, I picked up seven years, which would have
begun in 1938, or 193 :hose must have been some pretty important years
since that was when the city was actually incorporated or created. I
imagine you had to do a lot of planning, did you not?
CRS: Pershing?
14
LGJ: Well, I ter about three years, we had an executive vice president
which I won't name, who decided to make a loan of 40,000 dollars, to a
man who didn't have too good of a record, to buy 0 pipe,am4,4t the close of
the second World War, about 1948, and on, the pipe was to be bought from a
man in Dallas who didn't really possess the pipe and the money instead of
f i vv“ being put in(...�a4 I'll put this in writing instead of being handled in
telegraph, was handled by telephone by th executive vice president and
when it got to the big bank in Dallas, this man owed them more money than
the amount the pipe cost and the homy was So another case
We went to shit and got back 'Half of it, and everybody out of $26
a share counting the stock and the reserve, e'Verybody put up $12 gladly,
and surpr'ed all the State Banking Departments in Austin. All our directors
met over there in Austin on a Saturday, Pete Muslin, Hursinburger and myself
and had the money ready by Monday. Not4I have over 17,000,000 below the
line.
LGJ: Yeah, my interest in it has continued. I guess you could call it a
director.
LGJ: We did injeed. We had to be very careful of promises and when
arguments took place between dewellers on the best streets such as Lee,
Street, and the yellers on-- what's the name of the general in the f..4-442....t
World War?
LGJ: Pershing..treet on whether the alleys should preserve its trees or
should have the trees cut, so as to permit the entrance and exit of the
garbage pickup truck. The council has some very great problems to handle.
LGJ: Sometimes members of the council would go out and help open up certain
areas. Some of the busiest times was when the counciloaalmost overl
erl
with the school board and you had to try to get o some of the deahers
pavement, for sidewalks at least, and for housing sso t ftet
in the school. Dr. Clark deserves credit for having
housing plan in College Station.
CRS: This is F. B. Clark?
LGJ: Dr. F. B. Clark. And it was very difficult in 1926,
for a Professor
of poultry husbandry to get a loan locally in order to build a house.
He had to go to Houston Building and Loan to get his loan in order to build
his house. But, later that opened up very well indeed, because the teaching
type of person who pa*a4. -t.ve� luuuLh on
staff during the depression had a typ got a faculty membe who made /
the dot. But, it was hard money. When y ou g
$2,000 he thought he was riding high.
CRS: Yeah, I can imagine, because there were a lot of people who were
not making anything.
LGJ: Yes sir, wasn't making anything. One of the daughters of one of our
eminent men on the campus, one of the deans, married
promising of our graduates here, who opened up
in Memphis, which looked like one of the most productive jobs in the world.
Wouljd up having to service his own station, and she said that a person that
had a job on the A &M faculty that gave him at least $1800 didn't know how
pu hd was. ced a typ e of was n daughter Those have that
prou
can get and won't need to work.
CRS: Well, I think yoJrr not at all alone in making that comment. It's a
t
fairly widely --held belief, and 1 think with some justification. I doubf, .t�.
ONAT:yiau would -ter }sus
ly _advocate goi back to the depression era. % �.
LGJ: Well, we ve welfare,
in the amount that is given and social s ecurity: , ,
who
We wouldn't have grown to a place we had in 19322 and av e frie who was
have read White's, not Stewart Edward Whit„, but
the originator of Cornell University. EzrA r Conell got Dr. White to map /
out the foundation of Cornell in 1968 and