Wetsel - between Allen and Fairview
Wetsel was located at present-day Hwy 5, Greenville Avenue, and Stacy Road. In the 1930s and 40s there was a motel to attract travelers on the main north/south road to Dallas. For the Centennial of the Republic of Texas Expo held in 1938, the traffic going to Dallas would have been heavy.
WETSEL JOTTINGS AS WRITTEN BY OUR SCRIBE
McKinney Daily Courier Gazette, July 23, 1938
Thrifty Farming Center Located On Highway 75 Between McKinney and Allen
[Note: In 1938, Highway 75 was the road that is Highway 5 today]
by Mrs. O. S. Scott
Wetsel community is located on Highway 75 almost five miles south of McKinney. It has a modern two or three-teacher school, a store, filling station and tourist camp. It is a community center surrounded by excellent blackland farms with a fine, high class type of citizenship inhabiting it. It takes its name from the late Uncle Jim Wetsel and wife, who reared their large family of children on their old homestead near the schoolhouse. Many other familiar names among old settlers had their habitations in the Wetsel community.
When this newspaper scribe called at the store, we found F. H. Hammel and wife busy serving customers in their general mercantile store and service station. They are also the owners of a machine shop and of the Wetsel Cottage Camp. They have several of these cottages neatly kept and looked after for the accommodation of tourists. The Lacy Wayside Park joins them on the south. These accommodations offer an ideal place for tourists to stop and rest to spend the night or perhaps a few days’ vacation as they feel like doing. Mr. Hammel, proprietor of these enterprises, was reared east of San Antonio. His father is deceased but his mother, Mrs. Emma Hammel, still resides at their old home near San Antonio. Mrs. F. H. Hammel was reared in the Lucas community, and before her marriage, was Miss Ida Rich, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Rich. Mrs. Hammel and husband have been residents of the Wetsel community for the past eight years. They chose an ideal location for their business and certainly they could not find a better community in which to live.
The Wetsel School is a modern building on a pretty campus with plenty of playground equipment for the children. During the term recently closed, Miss Lonnie Mae Hight and Miss Juanita Moore were the teachers. The former has been teaching at Wetsel for five years, while the latter has just completed her first year’s term of school at this place. Miss Juanita is a daughter of W. M. Moore, a worthy farmer, living on his place, four or five miles southeast of McKinney. Her father is a brother of Sheriff E. B. Moore of this county. The Wetsel School Board is composed of G. W. Compton, Bart Bryant and Will Bush. It is our information that the Wetsel School is not encumbered with debt and has some money in its treasury.
Wetsel farm women are grouped in an active Home Demonstration Club organization, which is officered as follows: Mrs. Bart Bryant, President; Mrs. Cliff Jones, Vice-President; Mrs. Ed Cain, Secretary-Treasurer; Mrs. Sam Payne, Council delegate; Mrs. R. E. Byrd, Bedroom Demonstrator and Mrs. Cliff Jones, Fruit Plot Demonstrator. The Wetsel Home Demonstration Club plans to remodel their clubhouse in a way that will make it a more comfortable meeting place for them in the future.
Mr. and Mrs. Bart Bryant are a thrifty farm couple. Their farm contains 121 1-2 acres that fronts on Highway 75 and located only about four miles south of McKinney and about three miles north of Allen. Its enterprising and industrious owner has the farm in an excellent state of cultivation. He has harvested a very good crop of wheat this year. Crops on his place, this year, are wheat, oats, corn, sorghum, grain, millet, cotton, and onions. Bart Bryant was born at Newport, Tennessee, and came to Texas at the age of only fifteen. Both of his parents passed away when he was quite young. He has one sister living and three brothers as follows: Gray Bryant, Newport, Tennessee; George Bryant, Rockwood, Tennessee, and Bob Bryant, Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Bart Bryant and Miss Minnie Hutcherson were married February 27, 1910. Mrs. Bryant is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson , now residing in the Clearlake community, about fifteen miles southeast of McKinney. They are the parents of two children, a boy and a girl. Their son, Jack Bryant is married, his wife being the former Miss Ellen Spradley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs F. D. Spradley of near Prosper. They are residents of Fort Worth. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bryant died at the early age of three. Mrs. Bryant’s parents were both reared in Collin County. Her father was born and reared three miles northwest of Prosper. Her mother, whose maiden name was Mary Etta Duncan, was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Duncan. She was born in Newport, Tennessee but was brought to Texas by her parents, when she was only two years old. Her parents J. P. Duncan and wife located on their farm, four miles west of McKinney in the Bowlby schoolhouse community, where they reared a large family of children and where both of them passed away a few years ago. Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson reared a large family of children as follows: Will Hutcherson, Route One, McKinney; Jack Hutcherson, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Ray Hutcherson, 431 N. E. 7th Street, Apartment 12, Oklahoma City, Okla; Dan Hutcherson, Route 1, McKinney; Alvin Hutcherson of Route 5, McKinney; Mrs. Jimmy Harrell, Memphis, Tennessee; Mrs. Forrest Strickland, Route 3, McKinney; Mrs. Betty Darland, Route 1, McKinney; Mrs. Bart Bryant, Route 2, McKinney.
For several years Mrs. Bart Bryant has been active in Home Demonstration Club work in Collin County. She served as Yard Demonstrator for the Wetsel Home Demonstration Club. She now has a pretty hedge for hiding unsightly buildings. Her hedge was grown from cuttings raised in her own cement pile cutting bed. These cuttings consist of native and nursery plants. The hedge is 100 feet long and costs her only sixty-five cents in money. Of course it cost considerable painstaking labor, but it is well worth the price. This hedge has ten different variations of shrubs, which are redbud, crepe myrtle, vitex, spirea, lilac, japonica, dogwood, African cedar, white vitex, and pomegranate. Leading into Mrs. Bryant’s pretty flower garden is a trellis over which a beautiful red rose is climbing and beautifully blooming. Stepping stone walks lead you into her garden and to her milk house, snugly sheltered behind a screen of attractive-looking shrubbery.
Mrs. Bryant very graciously accompanied us to the hospitable home of a good neighbor in the person of Mrs. R. E. Byrd and husband. Mr. Byrd was born in McMinnville, Tennessee, and moved to Texas with his family in 1911. Soon after coming there his wife passed away, leaving a little baby girl that was reared by Mrs. Alex Russell of Clearlake. In 1922, Mr. Byrd married the second time to Mrs. Candace Smith Shaffer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Smith of Camp County, Texas. The second Mrs. Byrd is a member of a large family of children consisting of four sisters and six brothers as follows: Mrs. I. E. Gautney, 309 Grey, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas; Mrs. M. J. Judice, 1107 Harwood Street, Houston, Texas; Mrs. R. E. Pattillo, 828 East Twenty-Fifth Street, Houston, Texas; O. L. Smith, Grand Saline, Texas; J. H. Smith, Los Angeles, Calif; Arland Smith, 209 Grey Street, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas; Miss Mary Jane Smith, 1816 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas; A. B. Smith, Fort Worth; Earl Smith, Fort Worth, Aaron Smith of Arkansas, and Mrs. R. E. Byrd, Route One, Allen. Mrs. R. E. Byrd is the mother of one daughter by a previous marriage. The daughter is now Mrs. C. B. Cotier and living at Humble, Texas. She is a regular reader of the Weekly Democrat-Gazette. Mr. Byrd’s children by his first wife are: Ray Byrd, Wink, Texas; Clifford Byrd, Clayton, New Mexico; Mrs. G. J. Neal, Depancle, New Mexico; Mrs. G. D. Houmer, and Miss Medwin Byrd, both of Princeton. Mr. Byrd’s children by his second wife are Doris Ethel, Senior the past year in the McKinney High School; Cletus, Louise, and Nelva Jean. Their daughter, Miss Doris Ethel, is reporter now for the Wetsel community for the Weekly Democrat-Gazette and Daily Courier-Gazette. We are sure that she will get valuable training in her capacity as newspaper reporter for her community and will have the cordial cooperation of her many friends in her efforts to gather and report all of the Wetsel community’s happenings from week to week.
McKinney Daily Courier Gazette, July 23, 1938
Thrifty Farming Center Located On Highway 75 Between McKinney and Allen
[Note: In 1938, Highway 75 was the road that is Highway 5 today]
by Mrs. O. S. Scott
Wetsel community is located on Highway 75 almost five miles south of McKinney. It has a modern two or three-teacher school, a store, filling station and tourist camp. It is a community center surrounded by excellent blackland farms with a fine, high class type of citizenship inhabiting it. It takes its name from the late Uncle Jim Wetsel and wife, who reared their large family of children on their old homestead near the schoolhouse. Many other familiar names among old settlers had their habitations in the Wetsel community.
When this newspaper scribe called at the store, we found F. H. Hammel and wife busy serving customers in their general mercantile store and service station. They are also the owners of a machine shop and of the Wetsel Cottage Camp. They have several of these cottages neatly kept and looked after for the accommodation of tourists. The Lacy Wayside Park joins them on the south. These accommodations offer an ideal place for tourists to stop and rest to spend the night or perhaps a few days’ vacation as they feel like doing. Mr. Hammel, proprietor of these enterprises, was reared east of San Antonio. His father is deceased but his mother, Mrs. Emma Hammel, still resides at their old home near San Antonio. Mrs. F. H. Hammel was reared in the Lucas community, and before her marriage, was Miss Ida Rich, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Rich. Mrs. Hammel and husband have been residents of the Wetsel community for the past eight years. They chose an ideal location for their business and certainly they could not find a better community in which to live.
The Wetsel School is a modern building on a pretty campus with plenty of playground equipment for the children. During the term recently closed, Miss Lonnie Mae Hight and Miss Juanita Moore were the teachers. The former has been teaching at Wetsel for five years, while the latter has just completed her first year’s term of school at this place. Miss Juanita is a daughter of W. M. Moore, a worthy farmer, living on his place, four or five miles southeast of McKinney. Her father is a brother of Sheriff E. B. Moore of this county. The Wetsel School Board is composed of G. W. Compton, Bart Bryant and Will Bush. It is our information that the Wetsel School is not encumbered with debt and has some money in its treasury.
Wetsel farm women are grouped in an active Home Demonstration Club organization, which is officered as follows: Mrs. Bart Bryant, President; Mrs. Cliff Jones, Vice-President; Mrs. Ed Cain, Secretary-Treasurer; Mrs. Sam Payne, Council delegate; Mrs. R. E. Byrd, Bedroom Demonstrator and Mrs. Cliff Jones, Fruit Plot Demonstrator. The Wetsel Home Demonstration Club plans to remodel their clubhouse in a way that will make it a more comfortable meeting place for them in the future.
Mr. and Mrs. Bart Bryant are a thrifty farm couple. Their farm contains 121 1-2 acres that fronts on Highway 75 and located only about four miles south of McKinney and about three miles north of Allen. Its enterprising and industrious owner has the farm in an excellent state of cultivation. He has harvested a very good crop of wheat this year. Crops on his place, this year, are wheat, oats, corn, sorghum, grain, millet, cotton, and onions. Bart Bryant was born at Newport, Tennessee, and came to Texas at the age of only fifteen. Both of his parents passed away when he was quite young. He has one sister living and three brothers as follows: Gray Bryant, Newport, Tennessee; George Bryant, Rockwood, Tennessee, and Bob Bryant, Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Bart Bryant and Miss Minnie Hutcherson were married February 27, 1910. Mrs. Bryant is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson , now residing in the Clearlake community, about fifteen miles southeast of McKinney. They are the parents of two children, a boy and a girl. Their son, Jack Bryant is married, his wife being the former Miss Ellen Spradley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs F. D. Spradley of near Prosper. They are residents of Fort Worth. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bryant died at the early age of three. Mrs. Bryant’s parents were both reared in Collin County. Her father was born and reared three miles northwest of Prosper. Her mother, whose maiden name was Mary Etta Duncan, was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Duncan. She was born in Newport, Tennessee but was brought to Texas by her parents, when she was only two years old. Her parents J. P. Duncan and wife located on their farm, four miles west of McKinney in the Bowlby schoolhouse community, where they reared a large family of children and where both of them passed away a few years ago. Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson reared a large family of children as follows: Will Hutcherson, Route One, McKinney; Jack Hutcherson, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Ray Hutcherson, 431 N. E. 7th Street, Apartment 12, Oklahoma City, Okla; Dan Hutcherson, Route 1, McKinney; Alvin Hutcherson of Route 5, McKinney; Mrs. Jimmy Harrell, Memphis, Tennessee; Mrs. Forrest Strickland, Route 3, McKinney; Mrs. Betty Darland, Route 1, McKinney; Mrs. Bart Bryant, Route 2, McKinney.
For several years Mrs. Bart Bryant has been active in Home Demonstration Club work in Collin County. She served as Yard Demonstrator for the Wetsel Home Demonstration Club. She now has a pretty hedge for hiding unsightly buildings. Her hedge was grown from cuttings raised in her own cement pile cutting bed. These cuttings consist of native and nursery plants. The hedge is 100 feet long and costs her only sixty-five cents in money. Of course it cost considerable painstaking labor, but it is well worth the price. This hedge has ten different variations of shrubs, which are redbud, crepe myrtle, vitex, spirea, lilac, japonica, dogwood, African cedar, white vitex, and pomegranate. Leading into Mrs. Bryant’s pretty flower garden is a trellis over which a beautiful red rose is climbing and beautifully blooming. Stepping stone walks lead you into her garden and to her milk house, snugly sheltered behind a screen of attractive-looking shrubbery.
Mrs. Bryant very graciously accompanied us to the hospitable home of a good neighbor in the person of Mrs. R. E. Byrd and husband. Mr. Byrd was born in McMinnville, Tennessee, and moved to Texas with his family in 1911. Soon after coming there his wife passed away, leaving a little baby girl that was reared by Mrs. Alex Russell of Clearlake. In 1922, Mr. Byrd married the second time to Mrs. Candace Smith Shaffer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Smith of Camp County, Texas. The second Mrs. Byrd is a member of a large family of children consisting of four sisters and six brothers as follows: Mrs. I. E. Gautney, 309 Grey, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas; Mrs. M. J. Judice, 1107 Harwood Street, Houston, Texas; Mrs. R. E. Pattillo, 828 East Twenty-Fifth Street, Houston, Texas; O. L. Smith, Grand Saline, Texas; J. H. Smith, Los Angeles, Calif; Arland Smith, 209 Grey Street, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas; Miss Mary Jane Smith, 1816 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas; A. B. Smith, Fort Worth; Earl Smith, Fort Worth, Aaron Smith of Arkansas, and Mrs. R. E. Byrd, Route One, Allen. Mrs. R. E. Byrd is the mother of one daughter by a previous marriage. The daughter is now Mrs. C. B. Cotier and living at Humble, Texas. She is a regular reader of the Weekly Democrat-Gazette. Mr. Byrd’s children by his first wife are: Ray Byrd, Wink, Texas; Clifford Byrd, Clayton, New Mexico; Mrs. G. J. Neal, Depancle, New Mexico; Mrs. G. D. Houmer, and Miss Medwin Byrd, both of Princeton. Mr. Byrd’s children by his second wife are Doris Ethel, Senior the past year in the McKinney High School; Cletus, Louise, and Nelva Jean. Their daughter, Miss Doris Ethel, is reporter now for the Wetsel community for the Weekly Democrat-Gazette and Daily Courier-Gazette. We are sure that she will get valuable training in her capacity as newspaper reporter for her community and will have the cordial cooperation of her many friends in her efforts to gather and report all of the Wetsel community’s happenings from week to week.
