The Bay City News (Bay City, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 36, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 23, 1956 Page: 7 of 8
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-
Thursday, February 23, 1956
THE BAY CITY NEWS
Page 7
COURT REAFFIRMS AID
TO U. S. ON COLORADO
An order reaffirming an order
of January 14, 1950, pledging the
court's cooperation with the United
States in regard to improvements
of the Colorado River, was passed
by the Commissioners' Court Feb-
ruary 4.
The order was passed over the
dissenting vote of Commissioner
Guy Johnson.
In a two-part proclamation the
court reaffirmed the previous
resolution and stated that, in the
«v^nt the United States ever re-
quires rights-of-way, easements,
spoil areas, or other facilities in
connection with improvements to
tj|> Colorado River in the county,
the county will obtain these items.
Eggs - Bacon - Milk
GET IT AT . . .
rpocis,
OKHTlUlOSVttV WIE
2714 7* ST
SERV-U
The Service Center was alloted
$75 monthly, changing an order
of December 12 giving the com-
Jack Fletcher
Enters Mayoralty
Race At Beaumont
Jack Fletcher, former Boling
and Midway (IWeedhaven Ranch)
resident and well-known in Mata-
gorda County, has tossed his hat
into the political ring at Beaumont
by announcing his candidacy for
mayor.
Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher moved
back to Beaumont in 1952
Fletcher is known here as a
former scout for the Gulf Oil Cor-
poration. During World War II, he
and his cruiser joined the Coast
Guard service patrolled the waters
of the Gulf of Mexico.
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STATE
PROGRAM FOR WEEK
OF FEB. 23 THRU 29
THURS.-FRL-SAT.
FEBRUARY 23-24-25
DOUBLE FEATURE!
He Wrote The History
Of The West!
* ... In Gunsmoke!
"BILLY THE KID"
with
f ROBERT TAYLOR
BAY DRIVE-IN
PROGRAM FOR WEEK
OF FEB. 23 THRU 29
THURSDAY - FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 23-24
ALSO
busier or iriioy
iWEWSAU
Sunday thru Wednesday
^FEBRUARY 26-27-28-29
Your Favorite Stars!
Me BALL
»™ARNAZ
imb MASON
in this year's
^ j( happiness hit..
L co-»forrlng LOUIS CALHERN
ft will. John EMERY I
F John HOYT • Natalia SCHAFER
( a MtmoootowYN M«rw ricimc
THE TYPE OF PICTURE
ALL WILL LOVE
AND ENJOY . . .
•por the starting time of
the features at the State
Theatre, phone CI 5-2121.
•For Bay Drive-In Theatre,
phone CI 5-3314.
1 EVERYBODY LOVES-
mVSSm
jvrysi
pi f •
'■ ' TfrCHHlCWft/
"ts.it JANET LEIGH
JACKLEMMON
BETTY GARRETT
SATURDAY ONLY
FEBRUARY 25
-DOUBLE FEATURE-
DANA
ANDREWS
PIPER
LAURIE
[SmokeSignal
"Technicolor
,»•—i RIX REASON • WIUIAM TALMAN •»UMVinAt MKMMIiOMl PCfu«l
—ALSO—
HUMPHREY BOGART
in
'Dead Reckoning"
SUNDAY - MONDAY
FEBRUARY 26-27
C|NbmaScop£
love Me or
IIeave MeI
I eo-ihwiiiwi
^ CXMfotring
/ Cameron MITCHELL wi/i i
A MfHO OQtPWTMIAATII HCTU»t VI1 I
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
.FEBRUARY 28-29
DOUBLE FEATURE
IjjwjG
WYMAN • HESTON
ALSO
20th CENTURY FOX priiinU
ktp£ OF MAYERS
Cinema
-Color by
_ oe Luxi
In Iht »ondtf oI HiQh.tm.tH-, ?rF»£OPHO -JIC SOUND!
munity house $40 monthly. The
county auditor was ordered to pay
the $75 in a court order February
13.
In the same session it was or-
dered that two floor machines
totaling $717.15 be purchased for
use in the courthouse.
Deficiency warrants totaling
$25,000 were ordered in a meeting
February 17.
The warrants were authorized
after work on the courthouse and
county jail had involved expendi-
tures in excess to the amount on
hand for such purposes.
Two warrants were ordered, each
for $12,500. One will be payable on
or be'fore January 1, 1957, and the
other on or before January 1, 1958.
The warrants will bear interest
at a rate of three and one-half
per cent per annum until paid.
ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNC-
ED—Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Penny-
cuick of Bellaire, formerly of
Bay City, have announced the
engagement of their daughter,
Miss Bonnie Jean Pennycuick,
to Clements E. Lamberth of
Brownsville. The wedding is
scheduled in August at the Bell-
aire Presbyterian Church.—Pho-
to by the Houston Chronicle.
STATE CHIEF DUE . . .
Some 25 Delegations Of Jaycees
Will Attend Meeting Here Friday
The Bay City Junior Chamber
of Commerce will play host Fri-
day night at 8 o'clock to 20 or 25
delegations of Jaycee members
and their wives at a regional
meeting.
Gerald Zlotnik, president of Bay
City Jaycees, said that the meet-
ing would be held either in the
Service Center or the American
Legion Building.
Highlight will be presentation
of sparkplug awards to club mem-
bers by State Jaycee President Ed
Stumpf of Houston. These awards
are made on the basis of attend-
ance and participation in club
affairs.
Other distinguished guests will
Vera Franceschi
Will Be Concert
Arfist Here March 16
Vera Franceschi, the first
American to win the Doctor of
Music degi'ee from Rome's Santa
Cecilia Academy, will be the com-
munity concert artist here March
16.
The pianist was a protegee of
Monteux and holds diplomas from
the Paris Conservatory and the
Manhattan School of Music.
The last two concerts, the Tuc-
son (Arizona) Boys Chorus and
Marina Svetlova and her concert
group, were complete sell-outs.
It is hoped that the March 16
concert can be held in the high
school auditorium. If work is not
complete, however, Miss Fran-
ceschi will perform in the Service
Center.
include National Director George
B. Gaines Jr. of Corpus Christi
and Regional Vice-President H. R.
Matrisician of Victoria.
Delegations invited are from
Aransas Pass, Beeville, Port La-
vaca, Edna, El Campo, Victoria,
Alvin, Angleton, Baytown, Bell-
aire.
Conroe, Crosby, Freeport, Hous-
ton, Humble, Lake Jackson, Pasa-
dena, Rosenberg, Spring Branch,
Old Ocean, Velasco, and West Co-
lumbia.
El Campo Will Be
Home Of Newlyweds
Following Honeymoon
Mr. and Mrs. Guy F, StovalJ Jr,
will live in El Campo upon their
return from a wedding trip to
Miami.
The Stovalls were married in a
ceremony at Houston February 7.
She is the former Miss Gayle
Kathryn Kuhn, daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Harry Martin Kuhn.
Miss Gayle Stovall and Mrs.
Walter Reifslager Jr., sisters of
the groom, were the bride's at-
tendants. Best man was Dr. Wal-
ter Reifslager Jr. of Galveston,
and Harry J. Kuhn II, the bride's
brother, was groomsman.
The bride attended Kinkaid and
Gulf Park College. Mr. Stovall,
son of Mr. and Mrs. Guy F. Stovall
of El Campo and Blessing, attend-
ed S.M.U. and will graduate from
the University of Houston in June.
Patronize NEWS advertisers
1
FRIDAY & SATURDAY
> I HUMPHREY
I BOGART
L FREDRIC
MARCH
Never an Excitement and '
Suspense
Picture
Like It!
% vm, CO STARRING
n . ARTHUR
KENNEDY
MARTHA SCOTT
DEWEY MARTIN
SUNDAY-MONDAY-TUESDAY— TWO FEATURES
A CHUCKLE WITH A HEAKT-MAT
A TEAR WITH A SMUII
JAMES
STEWART
ARTHUR KENNEDY*DONALD CRISP• CATHY O'DONNELL
ACOUIMIIA
DEEP WATER APPROVAL
BRIGHTENS BAY REGION
(Following is a timely article
by William Shepherd, public re-
lations director of the Aluminum
Company of America, in the
January issue of the South Tex-
an, official South Texas Cham-
ber of Commerce publication,
which should be of interest to
all residents of the Matagorda
Bay area.)
There is a growing enthusiasm
that the Matagorda Bay area is
destined to become one of the four
great industrial centers on the
Texas Gulf Coast.
This is the area that was the
center of trade, commerce and
population in the years before the
state became a republic. It was in
this region that the largest port in
Texas, Indianola, was located.
Matagorda, until recently prac-
tically a ghost town, was one of
the 10 largest cities in Texas.
Texana, once considered the ideal
location for a dream city by the
Allen brothers who later developed
Houston, is also within this region.
All of these ports were served by
the large shipping companies of
that era. Deep-draft sailing vessels
and early steamships probed the
rivers and bays of this region.
Suddenly all of this was gone.
The rivers silted up and became
impassable for shipping. Efficient
dredging methods had not yet been
discovered, and shoals developed
at the mouths of the bays. The
region became almost solely depen.
dent on agriculture.
Today there is a strong belief
and this optimism is shared by
government analyses, that the Port
Lavaca-Palacios area will again
assume an important role in the
economy of Texas. Tangible evi-
dence of the area's progress is
contained in a report recently
unanimously approved by the Board
of Engineers in Washington, D. C.
The report submitted by the Dal-
las Office of the U. S. Corps of
Engineers proposes a 36-foot deep
draft channel connecting Matagor-
da Bay arid the Gulf of Mexico at
Pass Cavallo.
The Federal Government has
long recognized the economic im-
portance of Pass Cavallo, located
midway between Galveston and
Corpus Christ, and in fact ap-
propriated money for dredging
during the period from 1876 to
1886 and again in 1949.
Until World War II, the income
of this mid-coast area was derived
largely from the fishing industry;
a modest production of oil and gas;
cattle; and agricultural products
such as cotton, rice and maize.
It was not until 1948 when the
Aluminum Company of America
began construction of its Point
Comfort Works near Port Lavaca
that the area received its first ma-
jor industrial plant.
For Texas it signalled a brand
new industry.
Originally designed for a 57,000
ton annual capacity, the Point
Comfort Works is now undergoing
its second major expansion. To-
gether with the company's smelt-
ing plant at Rockdale, Alcoa will
produce in Texas an estimated
245,000 tons of aluminum in the
form of pig and fabricating ingot
by mid-1956. Then, only the State
of Washington will produce more
aluminum than Texas.
But the growth of the aluminum
industry is only part of the story
of the industrialization of the Tex-
as Mid-Gulf Coast. The important
and rapidly developing petrochemi-
cal industry also promises great
opportunity for expansion. Using
natural gas as a raw material Du-
Pont began producing adipontrile,
a nylon intermediate, in 1951.
Carbide & Carbon Chemical Com-
pany, which completed its Seadrift
plant in 1954, has already an-
nounced expansion of this new
plant, where ethylene glycol, buta-
diene and polyethylene are pro-
duced from nautral gas.
The annual industrial payroll
alone in Calhoun and Victoria
Counties has been increased a
staggering $12 million since 1949.
There have been at least 2400 new
industrial jobs created since 1949
which, in turn, each create three
to seven other additional jobs.
While not as spectacular as the
industrial growth, the traditional
products of the area have shown
a steady increase. Also, there has
been a corresponding expansion of
the service industries such as oil
field suppliers, building construc-
tion, steel fabricating and machin-
ing, warehousing, grain handling,
boat construction and food process-
ing. For example, the fishing in-
dustry now represents an invest-
ment in the area estimated con-
servatively at $6 million. The an-
nual operating expenses of the
fishing industry total in excess of
$5% million. Of this figure, over
$3% million go for payrolls and
the remainder for maintenance,
fuel and ice. In 1953 the Mid-
Coast area produced nearly 'five
million pounds of shrimp. In addi-
tion, more than 21 million pounds
of shrimp were trucked in from
other ports and processed in this
area.
The proposed channel at Pass
Cavallo promises even a greater
future to the industry by assur-
ing the area fishing fleet a safe
outlet to the productive Gulf
grounds.
Agriculture still provides one
of the principal sources of income
for the six-county area. The lead-
ing products are cattle, cotton,
rice and maize.
On top of this already impres-
sive story, add the strong possibili-
ty that the area may soon have a
deep water port, and the signifi-
cance of the future of this area
becomes apparent.
The U. S. Corps of Engineers'
recommendation that Pass Cavallo
be made a deep water pass did not
just happen. It came as a result of
the coordinated efforts of energe-
tic and imaginative citizens. No
less than five navigation and wa-
ter districts, all dedicated to special
projects, had to agree and support
one plan which would give maxi-
mum benefit to the whole area.
In 1954, seventy - nine leaders
from Calhoun, Matagorda, Refugio,
Wharton, Victoria and Jackson
Counties formed the Texas Mid-
Coast Water Development Associa-
tion. The organization has as its
sole purpose the promoting of the
public interest in the cities and
towns of the Mid - Coast Area
through improvement of salt wa-
ter facilities and conservation of
fresh water supplies.
With local cooperation assured,
the U. S. District Engineer in
Galveston bagan a study of the
feasibility of a safe and deep draft
channel to the Gulf from the Port
Lavaca-Palacios area.
In August of last year the as-
sociation sought and obtained a
hearing before the engineers. After
further study the association ask-
ed for a 36-foot channel from
Matagorda Bay to the Gulf, and it
was proposed to have two feeder
channels leading to the pass. One
of the channels would begin at
Port Lavaca and the other at Pala-
cios.
It was at this meeting t>iat tho
ihitial §ue§9S ftf the project was
virtually assured ■Wheii the Calhoun
County Navigation District arid
the Matagorda Navigation District
No. 1 gave evidence that they were
willing and financially able to
meet all local interest obligations
and to pay a substantial portion of
the cost of the project.
The economic justification and
the financial ability of the navi-
gation districts to pay for the local
interests' share of the new channel
was made possible when Alcoa
went on record with a plan to
build a new alumina plant at Point
Comfort, costing more than $35
million, if a channel could be as-
sured by mid-1956.
Alcoa is faced with the immedi-
ate need to expand its alumina
facilities in order to keep pace
with added smelting capacity in
Texas and other locations. The
proposed alumina plant at Point
Comfort would have an initial
yearly capacity of 500,000 tons.
Since it requires two pounds of
bauxite to produce one pound of
alumina, about one million tons of
bauxite would be mined and ship-
ped to Point Comfort from the
Caribbean and South America by
ocean vessels.
The company plans to build its
new alumina plant with the aim of
commencing production by mid-
1958. The plant would employ a
minimum of 650 new workers and
its payroll would exceed $3 mil-
lion annually.
Alcoa has agreed to pay service
and dockage fees to the Calhoun
County Navigation District and
thus enable the district to amortize
its obligations to pay one-half the
incremental cost of the proposed
deep water facilities.
It is apparent that this region
has a tremendous potential and
there seems to be ample proof of
the economic justification and
urgent need for a deep water chan-
nel. To become a reality the pro-
ject must, of course, be approved
by Congress and then appropria-
tions passed, »
But the people of the Mid-Gulf
Coast are eagerly lookjpg forward
to the time wftferi ocean-going ves-
sels will again dock at their door-
step. They have worked hard and
have faith that they will see their
area become one of the great in-
dustrial centers of Texas.
TELEPHONE
TALK
by Vernon L. Richards, Manager
An impulse of the finger, a click and immediately
a modern day device is at your disposal.
In this age of push-button devices and electronic
eyes, you are demanding things which will give you
greater efficiency and faster, smoother service.
You will not admit it is exerting or too difficult
to lower or raise your car window by turning a
handle provided for this action. Nevertheless, while
the automobile salesman stresses the convenience
of a vacuum button device which at the touch of
your finger will do this service for you, you picture
yourself at the controls and immediately this added
convenience is magnified in your mind.
As you become accustomed to the modern inven-
tions, they become items of necessities in your life.
Telephones Are Being Improved Too
While your telephone equipment is improved and
modified to meet the demands of your advancing
desires, like the vacuum push-button, it still depends
on your co-operation in order to provide you with
fast, efficient service.
During a normal day there are an estimated
1,300 long distance calls placed throiigl&;the tele-
phone equipment at the central office. Of these
1,300 calls per day, approximately 875 are Bay
City users.
Give The Town First-
When placing a long distance call, if you first
give the operator the town and then the number of
the party you desire, she will code dial this distant
city then dial the number and immediately you are
connected and ready to talk. The whole operation
takes only a matter of seconds.
If the operator must obtain the number you de-
sire from the information operator in the distant
city and then dial back to obtain your party, minutes
are consumed.
Mrs. Priscilla Gentry, chief operator for this
area, makes this statement, "Calls to distant infor-
mation operators are becoming less and less fre-
quent due to your response in placing calls by num-
ber. Calling by number is contagious, let's start an
epidemic."
You, in the near future, will pick up your home
telephone and dial direct to that friend or relative
in a distant city. In view of this advancement, you
are able to see the importance of learning to call
by number.
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company
LONG DISTANCE IS TWICF AS FAST WHtN YO'J CAH BY NUMBFR
'L.
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Stewart, Bob. The Bay City News (Bay City, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 36, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 23, 1956, newspaper, February 23, 1956; Bay City, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth428516/m1/7/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Palacios Library.