Heritage, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1987 Page: 20
50 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The interior of the Leibold Pharmacy, corner of Constitution and Main Street, as customers saw it.
Louis P. Leibold was a German-educated chemist who established his first Victoria pharmacy in 1847.
He purchased the site for the pharmacy in this photograph in 1880. Thirty years later Jules Leffland
designed and constructed a new building, currently occupied by Bianchi's Pharmacy, to replace
Leibold's. The street corner where the Leibold Pharmacy stood was a major center for Victorians tomeet and socialize.
during the late nineteenth century; most
evaporated, but one of the many proposals
tied Victoria to the twentieth
century.
The old New York, Texas, and Mexican
line had romantic connotations. J. W.
Mackay, rich from Comstock Lode investments,
collaborated with Colonel Daniel
E. Hungerford, a New York Mexican
War hero with West Coast dreams. Hungerford
and daughters Marie, Louise, and
Edna met Italian count Joseph Telferner,
a South American railroad builder, in
1879. The count married Edna and convinced
Mackay and Edna's father of the
feasibility of a line from Galveston to
Mexico. Thus commenced in 1880with
Italian laborers whose descendants
became an integral part of Victoria's social
scheme-a less than successful financial
enterprise, the "Macaroni Line."
As the "Cradle of the Cattle Industry,"
Victoria justly claims some of the earliest
herds, brands, and breeders as well as the
birthplace of the first managed herds to go
up the trail following the Civil War. The
region between Victoria and Mission Valley,
where Espiritu Santo mission and presidio
were located during 1726-1749, is
the most likely place to boast the beginning
of enormous herds descended from
20Columbus' second voyage to the New
World and Alonso de Le6n's strays of
1690. Espfritu Santo claimed 40,000
head in 1770, some years after its relocation
to Goliad.
With the demise of the "long drive,"
Victoria cattlemen turned to improving
their herds for a more discriminating market-and
there were more than enough
left for experimental breeding. Victoria
County held some 75,000 animals in
1883 worth about $1 million. Durhams,
Herefords, Sussex, Angus and Red Angus,
and Brahmas now appeared. A BrahmaHereford
mix made the J. A. McFaddin
ranch unique; Martin O'Connor, Tobe D.
Wood, JohnJ. Welder, Claude McCan,
and John H. Keeran and his son applied
their wits to breeding and controlling
cattle disease. These ranchers built extensive
ranch holdings still intact and
later enhanced by the discovery of oil and
gas reserves.
Such an economic foundation produced
ancillary enterprises. Two impressive
banking institutions-First Victoria
National Bank and Victoria Bank
and Trust-emerged from more modest
houses. A unique slaughtering and
meatpacking plant (later moved to Fort
Worth) developed; a lock and safe company was not duplicated south of St.
Louis; Bailey Mills became Victoria's
primary builder and Jules Leffland the
region's most talented and productive
architect.
By the 1890s Victoria had installed a
city water system, street railway, telephone
connections, electric power, a volunteer
fire department, and the initial requirements
of a public school system
which replaced early private schools
and supplemented excellent parochial
schools. Diversified farming challenged
cotton-rice, other food crops, and orchards,
which owed much to "the Texas
Burbank," Gilbert Onderdonk, pioneer
pomologist known nationwide for his
techniques, appeared.
European issues leading to World War I
were too remote to be of abiding interest
to Victorians. Balkan boundaries,
Austro-Hungarian and Serbian clashes, a
complex and binding set of treaty obligations,
and even the jeopardy of freedom
on the high seas for neutrals such as
the United States were of little immediate
import to anyone except as patriotic
affiliations on the part of more-recent
immigrants.
Once declared in April 1917, however,
the emergency permeated local thoughts.
A Victoria County Loyal League established
an informal procedure for investigating
disloyalty, Red Cross workers
were organized, a new seventy-foot flag
pole was erected to display Old Glory, and
residents waited unsuccessfully for rumors
of a local military camp to stimulate the
economy.
As young men faced the prospects
of conscription or volunteering, few
slackers were identified. A. M. McFaddin,
Frank B. Lander, and W. E. Franz requested
and received permission to organize
a company of National Guard troops.
Company A, Fifth Texas Infantry, commanded
by Captain Frank J. Drick, thus
came into being with William Roy McFaddin
and Jack A. Lander as lieutenants
for a 200-man unit. A. M. McFaddin
offered a five-dollar gold piece to each
volunteer.
In the initial stage of preparing for
combat, the Victorians were reassigned as
Company I, Third Texas Infantry, which
in turn became part of the 143rd Regiment
of the new 36th Infantry Division,
consisting mostly of Texans and Oklahomans.
The hardships of training, reorganization,
and serious shortages in basic
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1987, periodical, Spring 1987; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45438/m1/20/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.