Texas at Milam

21 March 1916: LEFT: 1. Majestic Vaudeville theatre with advertising banner; 2. The Houston Chronicle Building, 10 floors, 1912; 3. the two towers of The Rice Hotel, 1912, 17 floors; 4. The Binz Building. RIGHT from center: 5. The Milby Hotel, 6 floors, 1910 [See another page in this series: Milby Hotel] 6. The Post Building [see Post Building], housing the entire publishing enterprise, including presses and paper storage on the lower level; 7. Randolph Paints building with various businesses in addition to the paint company on the near corner and National Cash Registers farther down Texas Avenue. For a reciprocal view from the other end of Texas toward this direction, see also [Interurban - Milby Hotel].

10 June 2014: LEFT: 1. The bones of the Majestic as it is being deconstructed [see also Majestic Theater]; 2. The Chronicle Building before it was taken to the ground [see Shearn Methodist] for a view of the 1960's "modern" cladding that once slip-covered the Chronicle Building; 3. The Rice Hotel, 1912, the west tower was added in 1926, and the 18th floor was added 1951, from 1977 until 1997 it was vacant, opening afterwards as the Rice Lofts; 4. The Binz Building, replacing the previous structure in 1982, 13 floors. RIGHT from center: 5. Great Southwest Building (Cambria Hotel Downtown), 1927, 21 stories; 6. Post Dispatch building (Magnolia Hotel), 22 stories, 1926; 7. Sterling Building (Texas Tower), 1931, 21 stories, before it was taken down in 2014 to accommodate 48 story Hines Tower North finished in 2017; 8. JPMorgan Chase Center, 20 stories including parking for 2,000 cars, 1982 [the Milby Hotel on the northwest corner of the block was demolished in 1971; 9. JPMorgan Chase Building, 75 floors, the tallest building in Texas, 1982 designed by I. M. Pei.

Postmarked: 21 March 1916; Houston, Tex. R. P. O. Stamp: 1c Green George Washington #405
To: Miss Carolym Simon
Laredo Texas
box 214

Message: Dearest Carol am at the Convention of Houston and thought of you write to me at Sandy Texas please with Love Mrs. M. B. Maddox.

When the American National Live Stock Association met in Houston in 1916 for their regional Cattlemen’s Convention, it was a really big event. Of course, Houston Mayor Ben Campbell attended, but state-level politicians such as the Governor James E. Ferguson was there and Lieutenant Governor W. P. Hobby came in from Beaumont as well. The programs were held in the City Auditorium, and a ladies’ reception was hosted by Mrs. J. W. Link (whose husband had begun to develop the Montrose neighborhood in 1911), which surely the author of the postcard, Mrs. Maddox would have attended.
She was Emily E. Mayes Maddox, daughter of Mary Louise and John Augustus Mayes, ranchers in Llano, and the wife of Montgomery B. Maddox. Her husband was a rancher and stockman in Sandy, Blanco County, about 230 miles north of Laredo, a man of average build, blue eyes and brown hair, bald by 1918. Emily was 24 years old when she wrote the postcard, and not long married to M. B. How Emily and Carolyn knew each other is not known, but since Emily thought of her friend while attending a cattlemen convention in Houston, it seems likely they were acquainted through some aspect of cattle ranching.
Emily and Montgomery would suffer great heartbreak two years after she wrote the card when their ten and a half month old son died at a hospital in Austin of gastroenteritis and cerebral palsy: Harold Mayes Maddox (September 1, 1917 / July 15, 1918). A couple of years later in 1920 she is found on the census back at home with her parents in Llano, working as a public school teacher while her husband remained in Blanco County some 45 miles away. Emily died 25 March 1930 at 38 years of age of a sudden heart attack at a luncheon for those in attendance at the District Court. While M. B. and dozens of others in attendance watched helplessly, she fell to the floor unconscious and died within 40 minutes. She is buried in Llano City Cemetery near her parents. Seven years later M. B. married Nettie Viola Felps, whose first husband was Spurgeon Bell Tyson (1894-1967), whom she married in 1915 and divorced in 1921.
Carolina Simon was the daughter of Steve Simon and Emma Spiess, managers of an onion farm in Laredo when she received this postcard. Steve immigrated from Luxembourg in 1880, making his way to Laredo by 1900, working at first as a railroad supervisor, before taking up farming in the river valley of the Rio Grande. In 1891 he married Emma Louise Spiess, daughter of Professor George Spiess, a music teacher and store owner in Tiffin, Seneca County, OH. Single throughout her life, Carol worked as a bookkeeper (1930), secretary at a railroad office (1940), and other office work.
Montgomery Bell Tyson and his second wife lived the rest of their lives in Sandy. He died in 1974 and is buried in Sandy Cemetery and Viola died 6 years later and is buried in Miller Creek Cemetery. Carolyn Simon died 25 February in Webb County, but her burial has not been identified.