November 3, 2025 - The official naming of the Shelby County Outreach Ministries main office location to the "Joy and Martin Weaver Building" was honored and celebrated today, November 3rd with a ribbon cutting event.
City of Center Mayor David Chadwick gave the history of the building and why it is now named the Joy and Martin Weaver Building. He described the building as now having a new life as it closed in 1983 and stood bare until 1996 when Outreach Ministries reopened it. The history of the Weavers was building up an industry as well as homes and a community. Now, Outreach Ministries honors them and their legacy by tending to the inner basic needs of a home.
Mayor Chadwick shared the history for the location of Shelby County Outreach Ministries, 930 Shelbyville Street, which has a long history in Center, Texas and Shelby County.
In 1915, Weaver Brothers Grocers and Grain was established here by Noble, Woolwine, Ernest and Marion Weaver.
Later, Marion, who is Martin Weaver's father and Joy Ann Havran's grandfather, became the sole owner and branched into the lumber business. The name was changed to Weaver Brothers Lumber Company, a lumber yard which he owned and operated until his death in 1940. At that time, Martin and his brother Malcolm Weaver assumed ownership.
Joy and Martin Weaver
Martin and his wife Joy Ellington Weaver took over the business expanding its scope and began not only selling lumber but all types of building supplies. From 1949 to 1982, Martin Weaver and Weaver Brothers Lumber Company grew into driving forces in Shelby County, building and financing over two thousand long style poultry houses across seven Texas counties and in Western Louisiana. Martin designed and built the first of this new type poultry house in East Texas in 1949 and was instrumental in bringing the poultry industry to Shelby County. He also built custom homes in four counties, developed and built Huxley Bay Marina, restaurant and motel, developed the Lakewood and Greenwood Subdivisions, secured an Ace Hardware franchise to operate out of Weaver Brothers Lumber Company and promoted fishing at Toledo Bend to sports writers and anglers statewide. Until his death in June of 1982, Martin, with Joy's steadfast and constant help, oversaw all of these activities from this location at 930 Shelbyville Street.
Weaver Brothers Lumber Company closed in 1983, and in 1996, Shelby County Outreach Ministries purchased the building.
Because this site has such deep ties to the Joy and Martin Weaver family and to the history of Shelly County, Shelby County Outreach Ministries in 2025 named this building the Joy and Martin Weaver Building in their memory to honor them and as a tribute to their legacy.
Joy Ann Weaver Havran attended the ribbon cutting, "I am just so thrilled to be able to do something to honor my parents because they were so, so wonderful to me. They were the best parents in the world. We were very close and I'm thrilled that this building where my parents spent their life working will always be the Joy and Martin Weaver Building now."
Sherry Harding, Executive Director of Shelby County Outreach Ministries, expressed her appreciation to the Weaver family for their long standing support of the community and to Outreach Ministries whose primary goal is to meet the basic needs of those in our community.
Naming the Outreach Ministies office Joy and Martin Weaver honors their legacy of building not only physical structures which their lumber company did but to build up the community. A favorite song of Martin Weaver summarizes their life: "Give, the world a smile each day, helping someone along life's way.”
