Beeville Bee Publisher/Editor W.O. McCurdy Took This Photo Around 1896.
My grandfather took this photo of Beeville, Texas about 9:30 AM, judging from the shadows. When I retraced the location of this shot, this is the perspective he would have had from the front door of his newspaper office on Washington Street, the main street in Beeville. I’m guessing the year must have been around 1896, but it could have been slightly later. I doubt it was anywhere close to 1906. Beeville had a few automobiles by that time. These would have been visible on market day. The big banner announcing “BASE BALL TO DAY” would have been a big deal back then, but I’ve never had the time in recent years to go to Beeville long enough to search the old newspaper files at the local library. I simply inherited this photo through my late father several years ago.
Here's the same perspective from above. I took this one in 1997,
Notice all the change in things over a century passage of time. Somewhere along the way, someone removed the ornate architectural street facing atop the drugstore up in the far right corner and, of course, there are no more horses and wagon wheels on Washington, except on the annual Western Days rodeo parade each October,
Beeville is my birthplace, but it’s also the birthplace of five former major leaguers who played a heck of a lot better than I ever did. Four of them played in the big leagues for extended career time. The other never played in the big leagues, but he’s made an active career for himself over recent years as a respected team batting coach.
Tomorrow I will continue this little trip to the place of my birth with some capsule information about Beeville’s five big leaguers: Bert Gallia, Curt Walker, Lefty Lloyd Brown, Eddie Taubensee, and Rudy Jaramillo.
Five major leaguers? That’s pretty good production for the sleepy little oil and cattle town that rests 53 miles west of Victoria and 50 miles north of Corpus Christi. Back in 1920, at the heart of the time that one of them was wrapping up a big league career and two others were just starting, Beeville only had a city population of 3,062 hardy souls and there were only 16 major league clubs.
More tomorrow.
February 25, 2010 at 8:08 pm |
Baseball, it seems has been in you since before you were born!