The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 247

The Kerrville Cedar Axe

Brothers of Memphis, Tennessee. Merchants throughout his
territory had mentioned to him on several occasions the need
for a more suitable axe for the cedar-choppers. On one of his
routine calls in Kerrville the question came up again in the
course of a conversation with Weiss. The manager of the hard-
ware department of the Charles Schreiner Company related the
story of the cedar axe he had just had made and asked the
company representative if the Hartwell people would manu-
facture such an axe for the cedar-choppers of the Kerrville
area. After he described the axe and mentioned its advantages
over the ordinary one, Judd became extremely interested and
asked to examine it.
Weiss agreed to bring his axe to the store as soon as he
returned from lunch. The salesman returned to the Charles
Schreiner Store after lunch, and as soon as he saw the new axe
and studied its modified features, he asked to be allowed to take
it with him and send it to the factory to be duplicated. Weiss
would not part with his axe, however, even after the salesman
guaranteed to return it to him personally. Furthermore, he
refused to sell it for any price whatsoever. Judd then pro-
ceeded to make a crude drawing of the axe before departing.
Several weeks later the salesman returned to Kerrville and
called upon Weiss again. The factory had been unable to dupli-
cate the axe from the drawing and reported that it would be
necessary to have an exact pattern before duplication could be
accomplished. Weiss again refused to part with his axe under
any conditions, even for a few weeks. He finally agreed, how-
ever, to go with Judd to see whether the same blacksmith,
Krueger, would make another one. The company salesman soon
discovered that the old blacksmith could be as stubborn as his
German friend, Weiss. After much insistence on the part of
Weiss, Krueger agreed, as a personal favor to his friend, to
make another cedar axe. Weiss had argued that if the company
did start manufacturing the axe and it became prominent, that
Kerrville could get considerable publicity from it in that he
would request the company to name it "The Kerrville Cedar
Axe." Krueger's reply was: "Well, since you are my friend,
I will do it, but I want you to know that you are the only
person in the world for whom I would spend so much time and
hard work in making another axe of this sort."
The pattern for the cedar axe was made with a few modifica-
tions from the original. Judd carried the implement to the

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