Shelby County Today

July 27, 2017 - Post Commander Gene Hutto (red shirt) welcomes new member Webb Bates and Sr. Vice Newton Johnson, Jr. (right) welcomes new member Kenneth Dickerson. Webb and Kenneth both served with the US Army in the Vietnam War. If you earned a campaign medal during a time of war or operation you've earned the right to be a member. Call Quartermaster Larry Hume at 598-2976.

July 26, 2017 - I thought of the author of a three volume publication of the Education in Shelby County, Texas – Dew Drops on the Pine Needles - at the close of the C.H. Daniels School Reunion held on the 4th of July weekend this year in Center, TX at the Windham Center Civic Center.

This was the event held every two years for the alumni and friends of the Daniels High School which had its last graduating class and last junior class in 1968 before integration in 1969.

In an effort to Keep the Legacy Alive in the memory of those who attended the school as well as their descendants, the reunion occurs. Dr. Charles Edward Tatum is that author. He did a fantastic job of research and capturing pictures and memories of others to make this a successful product. A lot of history is in print of these volumes. Though copyright in 2007 it is still on high demand. In 2018 the 50th anniversary of the school closing will occur and plans are being made to have a recognition of the fact. The committee encourage all who attended the school from 1st grade through 12th and their descendants to participate.

Dates and venue are being determined and will be publicized soon. Watch for fundraisers throughout the year to support this effort. Any suggestions and comments are welcome and can be submitted to the post office box (P. O. Box 1496, Center, TX  75935)

Related article: C.H. Daniels High School Reunion Recap

July 21, 2017 - In 1979, Wayne Fults found an odd bottle marked “Jasper Bottling Works” in a gulley in Sabine County. Having grown up around Pineland, he was no stranger to old “coke bottles” in ditches, but this one was different. It was short, thick, and had some sort of wire aparatus in the opening. Fults assumed it had been the product of a bottle manufacturer in Jasper but he wanted to know more. Thus began a nearly 40 year fascination with antique soft drink bottles that Mr. Fults shared with the Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society at their July meeting last Wednesday.

Fults showed the strange bottle to his grandfather, who had been born in 1895, to see if he could shed any light on Wayne's find. His grandfather knew exactly what it was: an old “sody water” bottle. Wayne's grandfather said he had first seen “sody water” in Center when he was a boy. It was in just such a bottle that he and other family members were given one soda water each by a store operator. His grandfather twisted and pulled on the wire in the stopper but it would not come out. Finally his brother showed him that one opened the bottle by striking the wire with one's hand, forcing the stopper down into the bottle with a “pop”. His grandfather's soda was strawberry flavored and he, having never had a soft drink before, turned it up and tried to gulp it down. Fults says the soda foamed up in his grandfather's mouth, came out his nose, burning all the way, and got all over his fresh clothes. The experience was so unpleasant that he never drank another soft drink.

Naturally effervescent beverages like beer and some wines have existed for thousands of years, but the process by which this effervescence could be added artificially wasn't discovered until the 19th century. These “carbonated” soft drinks could only be found at the soda fountain of pharmacies, served from the spigot in a glass. Bottling soda water was another matter. It was easy to produce a bottle thick enough to withstand the pressure created by a carbonated drink, but it was not until 1894 that a patent was issued for the Hutchinson Patent Spring Stopper, the type first encountered by Wayne's grandfather, which used a wire device to hold the stopper inside, rather than outside, the bottle. The pressure inside the bottle pressed the rubber and steel stopper ever more tightly against the inside of the bottle's opening, creating an effective seal and making the bottling of carbonated soft drinks possible. Only by pushing the stopper back into the bottle could the bottle's contents be accessed. Soft drink bottlers began opening up all over, ordering their Hutchinson bottles from large glass factories in the North, but having their company's name molded into the side, as in Wayne's Jasper Bottling Works bottle.

Fults doesn't know when the first Timpson Bottling Works opened, but assumes it was around 1900. He thinks it is possible that there was more than one bottler given that some early bottles in his collection are marked Timpson Bottling Works, while other Hutchinson bottles of the same era are marked Timpson Bottling Company, with variations thereof.  Because the stopper of a Hutchinson bottle could not be removed, washing and sanitizing the bottle for re-filling was difficult. The invention of the familiar crimped metal crown cap in the early 20th century spelled the end of the Hutchinson  bottle but it allows bottle collectors to date a bottle's manufacture.

Fult's has a number of Timpson Hutchinson bottles as well as later crown-cap bottles in his collection. However, he has never seen a Timpson bottle from the 1920s, leading him to conclude that Timpson Bottling Works failed in the teens, possibly as early as 1913. This theory is supported by the fact that he has a newspaper article from 1928 announcing that a bottling plant was coming to Timpson. The bottles in Wayne's collection from the early 20th century are all of the “utilitarian” type, with no ornamentation. Those from the 1930's are in the “art deco” style, with greater attention to aesthetics and ornamentation in their design. Margie Holt brought one of that style to the meeting, which Mr. Fults revealed was from 1931 by decoding the numbers stamped on the bottle's bottom.

Mr. Fults brought an astonishing array of Timpson bottles for display at the meeting, including both Hutchinson and crown-cap types in different variations. Some were stamped Timpson Bottling Works, while others were stamped Timpson Bottling Company, or TBW. He also displayed three wooden soft drink cases marked Timpson Bottling Works, which he says would have been used for shipping new bottles as well as the collection of used bottles for return to the plant for re-filling. Unlike more familiar crown-cap bottle cases, these Hutchinson bottle cases have lids and were designed to have the bottle placed top down rather than up.  Another unusual item he displayed was a crown-cap Timpson Bottling Works bottle about 20% larger than the other bottles. He has never seen another like it and doubts that it was used for soft drinks, but possibly syrup or perhaps even beer. No one in attendance knew its purpose either.

Mr. Fults was accompanied to the meeting by Casey Roby, a fellow collector who is putting together a bottling museum in Silsbee. Casey said the displays are about 80% complete and he hopes to have it open soon. A number of other bottle collectors had seen the announcements of the subject and theis month's TAGHS meeting and came as guests as well. Wayne still seekes out bottles from East Texas and Western Louisiana and maintains a website featuring his collection at fults.org.

The Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 2PM in the meeting room of the Timpson Public Library, located on the Corner of Austin and Bremond Streets. The public is always invited.

The University of Texas at Tyler Announces 2017 Spring Dean’s List

July 20, 2017 - Joshua Shofner Burns, a 2015 Center HS graduate, was listed on the Spring 2017 President's Honor Roll.

The University of Texas at Tyler has named 412 students, as well as 76 pharmacy students, to the Dean’s List for the 2017 spring semester, President Michael Tidwell announced.

In order to qualify for the university Dean’s List, a student must have completed 12 or more semester hours of undergraduate college-level credit in the awarding semester with a grade point average of at least 3.75. Students named to the President’s Honor Roll are not named to the Dean’s List. To be considered for such recognition in any semester, a student must qualify as a matriculated student pursuing a first bachelor’s degree. The Dean’s List is awarded in fall and spring semesters only.

To qualify for the Dean’s List in the Ben and Maytee Fisch College of Pharmacy, a student must have completed nine hours during a session with a grade point average of at least 3.75. There were two eight-week sessions during spring 2017. Pharmacy students will take nine credit hours each session.

Click here for the full list.