New Mexico, Summer, 1947

We still don’t know what it is or where it comes from, but there’s something there. This is not another flying saucer scare. Whatever it is, it’s something real. Anxiety and concern abound, but there is no outward sign of panic.[1]

Real indeed. This was unlike the numerous sightings of the preceding month, Mac Brazel was sure of that. After all, he was standing over the wreckage. Unsure of its origin or purpose, but aware that it may be related to the strange objects seen in the sky across the country, he packed up what he could and delivered it to Sheriff Wilcox in Roswell. Stymied, Sheriff Wilcox in turn contacted officials at Roswell Army Airfield to investigate.[2]

This incident would later become the impetus behind the world’s fascination with UFOs.

______________________________________________________________________________

January 2^nd is unofficially known as Science Fiction Day, corresponding with famed writer Isaac Asimov’s birthday (the Denton Public Library has several selections of Asimov available to check out here). So, in honor of Science Fiction Day we revisit arguably the most infamous of UFO stories. Whether or not the Roswell Incident is science fiction or fact has been debated for decades.

On July 8, 1947 the Roswell Daily Record reported, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region.”[3] Just hours later, the “Army Debunks Roswell Flying Disk as World Simmers with Excitement.”[4] These two conflicting reports, made within hours of each other, served as the catalyst for conspiracy. We take for granted the scope of the controversy as we know it today, but at the time public interest was more or less sated with the official story of a weather balloon. Regardless, the government did seek to investigate UFO sightings to determine whether or not they were a threat to national security. This investigation began with Project SIGN in 1947 and culminated in Project BLUE BOOK from 1952-1969 (Project BLUE BOOK records are available online from the library with Fold3!) However, it wasn’t until some thirty years later that the controversy surrounding what happened in Roswell became what we know it as today.[5]

Figure 1. Roswell Daily Record. July 1947. Downloaded from https://web.archive.org/

In the late 1970’s several persons claiming to be present during the Roswell Incident came forward with claims never before made, most notably former intelligence officer Jesse Marcel. Claims of cover-up and the existence of alien remains reignited public curiosity about the incident perhaps enhanced by a spate of theatrical releases with aliens as a central premise, including Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and an episode of Unsolved Mysteries (1989) specifically dealing with Roswell.[6]

Eventually, pressure for more information led New Mexico Congressman Steve Schiff to commission a report by the General Accountability Office. The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was released in 1995 and is available in all its 994-page glory online here. The report confirms the wreckage found in Roswell as that of a high-altitude balloon, but not a weather balloon. It was supposedly a part of Project MOGUL, a secret program that used balloons to detect nuclear explosions in order to determine if and when the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons.

This revelation did not deter skeptics. Only a month later the infamous “Alien Autopsy” video was released by Fox which was later discovered to be staged.  There’s even a theory that suggests the Roswell Incident was a collaborative effort between Josef Stalin and Nazi Doctor Joseph Mengele to create genetically altered “grotesque, child-size aviators” with “unusually large heads and abnormally shaped, oversize eyes” to incite panic and hysteria among the American public using HG Wells’ War of the Worlds as inspiration.[7]

Figure 2. BG Ramey with wreckage. July 1947. Downloaded from https://www.physics.smu.edu/

Now, much of the focus by UFOlogists seems to be on what is referred to as the “Ramey Memo.” A now famous photo, the original negative of which is held in the archives of the University of Texas at Arlington’s Library, depicts Lieutenant General Roger Ramey kneeling over the wreckage from Roswell holding a memorandum. One picture of LTG Ramey shows some text of the memo which researchers have vigorously attempted to read using various techniques with varying results. One such attempt was publicly made on a 2017 episode of the Travel Channel’s Expedition Unknown in which a court certified forensic photo analyst examined the original negative. There is still no consensus as to the contents of the memo, but UTA has hi-resolution scans of the memo available online here, and is even offering a $10,000 reward for any person or group that can definitively read it![8]

Does this event have a connection to Denton? Why, yes it does. Roger Ramey grew up in Denton and was an alumnus of North Texas State Teacher’s College, now the University of North Texas before beginning his illustrious military career which can be read about here. Ramey passed on 4 March 1963. He is buried in the Garden of Faith section of the Roselawn Memorial Park here in Denton.

Whether you’re a searcher of truth or just a fan of ET, we hope you enjoy your Science Fiction Day. Stop by the library, check out a book, movie or research Project BLUE BOOK in Special Collections!

Matthew Davis, Special Collections

Notes

[1] Robert Wise, The Day The Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox, 1951).

[2] Donovan Webster, “In 1947, A High-Altitude Balloon Crash Landed in Roswell. The Aliens Never Left.,” Smithsonian Magazine, July 5, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/in-1947-high-altitude-balloon-crash-landed-roswell-aliens-never-left-180963917/.

[3] “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region,” Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947, https://web.archive.org/web/20040811212525/http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/Roswell/RoswellDailyRecord.jpg.

[4] “Army Debunks Roswell Flying Disk as World Simmers with Excitement,” Roswell Morning Dispatch, July 9, 1947, https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/Army_Debunks_Roswell_Disk.pdf.

[5] “The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” (Headquarters United States Air Force, 1995), https://www.afhra.af.mil/Portals/16/documents/AFD-101201-038.pdf.

[6] Mike Cox and Renee Roderick, Texas UFO Tales: From Denison 1878 to Stephenville 2008 (Dallas: Atriad Press, 2009).

[7] Annie Jacobsen, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base (Columbus: Back Bay Books, 2012).

[8] “Ramey Memo High Resolution Microfiche Scans,” Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington, 2017, https://library.uta.edu/roswell/ramey-memo.

Advertisements

Great American Read: Denton Edition

And the winner is…

Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling

 

PBS did a nation-wide search for America’s best-loved novel and we thought it would be fun to see how Denton compared to the rest of the country. Check out the full results!

Before there was Facebook…

So how did we keep up with what was going on around town before the age of the Internet and Social Media? In Denton, other than the local newspaper and actually talking to each other, we had a monthly community newsletter published by E.J. Headlee. The newsletter was distributed from 1936 to 1972 under four titles, The Doings, This Week in Denton, Doings in Denton, and The Denton Doings.

The Doings started as a family newsletter but grew to a publication that distributed over 6000 copies monthly. The newsletter, subtitled “The Magazine of Goodwill” was a free publication that featured community news, events, and information about people’s lives.  The issues are packed with photographs and articles about events in people’s lives as well as organizational (churches, clubs, and schools) and community activities.

In 2017, the Denton Public Library was awarded a Rescuing Texas History Mini Grant which provided funds to digitize and add issues of the newsletter from 1948 to mid-year 1956 to the University of North Texas Portal to Texas History. If you have family in Denton during these years you can search for them by name in the online newsletter.

We applied for the grant again in 2018 and were again awarded funds for the digitization of the next set of newsletters from March 1956 through May 1964. These are not yet available on the Portal but they should be up by the summer of 2019.

If you would like to learn a little more about E. J. Headlee (who is also the namesake of Headlee Street in North Denton) you can listen to an oral history Mr. Headlee shared with the staff of the Denton Public Library in 1975. Or visit the Special Collections Research Area at the Emily Fowler Central Library.

Laura Douglas

 

 

Flirt

On November 28, 1916, the City of Denton passed a mashing ordinance.

I ran across this while looking through some old Denton City Council minute books and was really surprised. Well, first I was confused because I didn’t know what mashing meant. I’d made a guess that was wrong (mashing=beer=prohibition), not to mention that guessing is too easy. So, I decided to look it up which is what you do when you work in a, um, library.

What is Mashing?

“Mashing,” also known as flirting, ogling, or petting is an older word that was used beginning around 1880. Nowadays, we call it sexual harassment. Back then it was a problem for women, just like now.

So yeah, it’s the same old story.  I’ve come across quite a few good articles on the subject of “mashing” and “mashers” in the early twentieth century and the significance of society’s response towards protecting women and sometimes men, just like now.

As to the ordinance, I believe the enacting of a law came about in the early 1900s as the first newspaper accounts of cities passing a mashing ordinance start showing up around that time period (see Chronicling America, mashing ordinance).

Denton’s ordinance, Section 379 said: “It shall be unlawful for any male person in the City of Denton, Texas, to flirt with or ogle any female person unknown to him, or to utter, make or produce any sound intended or calculated to attract the attention of such female person, or to annoy or embarrass such person.”¹

City Council Minute Bk. 05 1916 – 9/1920, p.7

When you compare the other fines, the fine for mashing was pretty hefty. For instance, in 1935 it was $25.00 per instance, which using a CPI inflation calculator, comes to $327 for 2018. And here I would like to insert that I’m not “picking on” Mr. S. E. Lee, only using him to illustrate this. However, looking through the monthly reports there’s not a whole lot of men on the books (in Denton) who got fined for mashing, only a handful here and there – just enough to send a message.

1935 Monthly Report of Fines, by Denton City Marshal, W. L. Knight

There’s not anything mentioned in Denton after 1948 so we can assume it was eventually voted off; I just don’t know the when of it. This is the last article I ran across that had any mention of a mashing ordinance in the Denton newspaper.

Denton Record-Chronicle, 27 Sept. 1948, sec.1, p.1

Most of the information that I have used has come from newspaper articles; some on The Portal to Texas History, the Chronicling America project, and through the library’s subscription to Newspaper Archive. One author Kerry Segrave, a cultural historian, has written several books on the topic that looks quite promising. The library does not have any of her books, but a limited preview is available through Google Books. I have paged through, Beware the Masher: Sexual Harassment in American Public Places 1880-1930 which looks fascinating and will be on my list to borrow through the library’s Interlibrary Loan service in the future.

~Leslie Couture, Special Collections Department

 

 ¹Denton, Texas, Municipal Code art. VI, § 379 (1941)

Cousins Across Continents

In 1991 my great-aunt Mary, the oldest daughter of Nicholas and Catherine Szpet, received a letter from Jelenia Gora, a small city in Southwestern Poland.  Nicholas and Catherine had immigrated to the United States from Europe in the early 1900s and met for the first time in America.  The letter was from a Katarzyna Pawliszyn and addressed to my great-grandfather Nicholas at his home in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Though Mary still lived in the house where her parents raised their family for a time, her father Nicholas, unfortunately, no longer lived there.  Nicholas had died in 1957 of carcinoma, most likely from a life spent below ground in the coal mines that pockmarked Pennsylvania’s share of the Appalachian Mountains.  I was told he suffered from black lung, an incurable disease that is caused by prolonged exposure to coal dust[1].  Catherine would die in 1972.  None of the remaining family had heard of Katarzyna and, because no one could read the language the letter was written in, the letter got shuffled away in grandmother’s house for more than 20 years.

In the Fall of 2014, while I was pregnant with my second daughter, my mother casually mentioned a family letter that had resurfaced and was written in what Great-Aunt Mary assumed was Ukrainian since that is what she remembered her parents speaking.  The contents of the letter were unknown and Mary was very curious about what it said.  Being that I was having a tough pregnancy and was not employed at the time, I badly needed a project and asked my mother to send a copy of the letter.  My interest was not only in the contents of the letter, but also in whether or not I would be able to translate the letter for my family.

Catherine

Nicholas

Catherine and Nicholas
Photographs from family archive, also found at https://www.findagrave.com

After I received the letter and began work on it, I realized something very quickly – that in my excitement over the letter and the translation, I had been very naïve.  I would not be able to translate this letter.  The Slavic language of Ukrainian was too different from my native English, combined with the fact that the letter was written in cursive and hard to read.  So I set it aside for 3 more years while I began a new life as a mother of two and a new career as a Reference Librarian here in Denton.

While working in the Special Collections and Genealogy department at the Emily Fowler Library, the thought of the letter floated back into my brain.  Perhaps I could reach out to someone to translate the letter for me and finally solve the mystery of what it said.  I did a random Google search on Slavic language professors and found one at a university in Indiana.  I had no idea how much time the translation of a 2-page letter would take, in addition to a professor’s usual workload, but I took a chance and emailed her a copy of the letter and asked her if a translation was possible.

She was very nice and agreed to translate the letter for me.  I was so excited and shared the news with my mom.  Unfortunately, I was unable to share this news with my Great-Aunt Mary, as she passed away in June 2016 at the age of 93.

In December 2017, several months after I first emailed her, I heard back from the professor.  The language of the letter, it turns out, is a mish-mash of Ukrainian and Polish.  Luckily, the translator spoke both!  She told me that, in her opinion, the writer was a Ukrainian speaker as a child, but then grew up to speak mostly Polish.  The boundaries of Eastern Europe shifted a lot historically and the Ukrainian and Polish languages, both from the same Slavic roots, have greatly influenced each other as a result.[2]

An example of the changing borders of Eastern Europe. [3]

The letter turned out to be from Nicholas’ cousin Katarzyna.  In the letter, Katarzyna tells the family that her father Mykhaylo Shpyt is the brother of Nicholas’ father.  Interestingly, she addresses Nicholas as ‘brother’ and refers to herself as his ‘sister.’  Terms of endearment I am assuming.  Also, her father’s name is another spelling of the family name ‘Szpet,’ which is good to know when doing genealogy research.  The letter, however, is very sad to read.

Katarzyna, it seems, is 73 years old at the time and very sick.  She states that her husband died 6 years ago and, with the exception of a grown son and two teenage granddaughters, she is alone.  She had written to Nicholas before and it seems he had written her letters while he was alive.  She said her son had written to the family after his death, but did not receive a reply.  She figures this is because no one could read the language that the letter was written in and admonishes the family for forgetting their roots.  Those who forget the native language “have not a heart but a stone.”  She does say that she hopes to see them and hear back from them.  Of course, she never did.

I did a search for Katarzyna Pawliszyn in several Genealogy databases and only found one potential match.  However, the birth year on the record does not match the birth year that I inferred using the date of our family’s letter and Katarzyna’s statement in the letter that she was currently 73 years old.  This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but at the present time I do not have enough information on Katarzyna to take my search on her any further.

As I finished reading the translation for the first time that December, my first cousin twice removed, Katarzyna, this woman whom I will never know, became a new member of my family.  She knew my great-grandfather who died some 20 years before I was born.  My great-grandfather helped give life to two of the most important people in my life – my Great-Aunt Mary and my grandmother Sophia – whose presence in my life became as familiar to me as the presence of my parents.  And my grandmother, of course, helped give me my mother.  And so to Nicholas and Catherine, to Katarzyna and her son, and to her grandchildren – Hello.

If you are interested in finding out more about your European ancestors, here are some great books that can be found at Emily Fowler Library’ Special Collections Department to get you started:

And don’t forget that with your library card you get access to great genealogy and history databases that include Ancestry LibraryEdition, Family Search, Fold3 and more!

Dawn Terrizzi
Public Services Librarian

[1]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/respiratory_disorders/pneumoconiosis_134,162
[2] The Polish and Ukrainian Languages: A Mutually Beneficial RelationshipMICHAŁ ŁESIÓW, Robert De Lossa and Roman Koropeckyj Harvard Ukrainian StudiesVol. 22, Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe (1998), pp. 393-406.
[3] https://tracingthetribe.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/los-angeles-changing-eastern-european-borders-april-26/

 

In The Weeds, 8/22/18: Ford-A-Palooza!

We’ve been working with Herbert Holl and Meredith Buie of UNT on the Square, City Historic Preservation Officer Roman McAllen, City Planner Sean Jacobsen, The Chamber of Commerce, TWU and UNT Special Collections, The Alexander Architectural Archives at UT Austin, and many others over the last year planning the new exhibit at UNT on the Square focusing on the life and works of noted Texas architect and former Dentonite, O’Neil Ford. This has been an amazing journey with some very passionate and dedicated preservationists, historians, and archivists.

We are incredibly fortunate in Denton to have so many historic O’Neil Ford structures to enjoy, both private and public. Every book about and expert on Texas architecture lists Ford near the very top in influence. We have become custodians of these important, one-of-a-kind buildings and it is hoped that we will continue to preserve them for generations to come.

As part of this celebration, we have a small exhibit at the Emily Fowler Library dedicated to Ford collaborators; brother Lynn Ford and Martha and Beaumont Mood of San Antonio.

There are so many facets to the O’Neil Ford story, that eliminating works or people for space considerations is not a fun task. Lynn and the Moods were so integral to Ford’s vision that they deserve tribute generally and especially because so much of their work is still very visible in Denton.

           The details of the exhibit are as follows:

     “O’Neil Ford: The Architect In His Works and Words”

    August 24th-Sept. 22nd. UNT On The Square, 109 N. Elm St.

   Opening Reception and Gallery Talk by Architectural Historian

   Stephen Fox, Friday August 31st 6-8:00 pm.

      Panel Discussion on Ford, Saturday, Sept 1st, 10:00am-12:00pm.

As a brief refresher on O’Neil Ford in Denton, the following is a representative list of buildings and homes extant as of 2018: Little Chapel in the Woods (TWU 1939); Civic Center Complex (Quakertown Park 1967-69); First Christian Church (1959); Gertrude Gibson House (1929); Selwyn School campus (1965-1969); etc. We have a collection of books, pamphlets, and news articles on the life and works of Ford at the Emily Fowler Library, as well.

Our exhibit at the O’Neil Ford-designed Emily Fowler Library focuses on Lynn’s wood carving and the ceramic fixtures designed and manufactured by Martha and Beau Mood. Here are a few pics of that exhibit and some Lynn Ford and Mood lighting visible here at the Fowler Library to whet your appetite:

If you decide to come by the Fowler Library to view these works, please come to the Special Collections Desk and speak to a staff member and we’ll be happy to point them out and provide access, as some are in the staff area and others may not be obvious to folks who are not as familiar with our library.

We plan to add to this blog post as the main exhibit at UNT on the Square progresses through September 2018, especially to document the Opening Reception and Panel Discussion on Labor Day Weekend. Please stay tuned!

 

Written by Chuck Voellinger, chuck.voellinger@cityofdenton.com

 

 

 

 

 

Z. Wiggs Reinvents the Wheel

We just got a letter in the mail from a thoughtful man in Michigan.

A typed letter.

I can’t tell you how rare that is, but to top it off – inside – a copy of a story from the November 1939 issue of Popular Science about a Denton man called, Z. Wiggs and his invention – which either they or Wiggs had coined “The Poochmobile”.

Z. Wiggs and his Poochmobile in Denton, Texas. Note the sign at the top of cage, “All Rights Reserved For Advertising Purposes Consult Builder, Z. Wiggs, 218 Blount St., Denton, Texas.” -Popular Science, Nov. 1939, p.142

Who was this Wiggs and what led him to such machinations of four-legged ambulatory madness?

Haywood Zephaniah Wiggs, otherwise known as “Zeph” or “Z.”, born in Union Co., Illinois in 1859 and grew up farming.  He married Rachel Ann Wilson in 1881 and they lived in Lick Creek, Illinois. I’m going to take a leap faith here to say that they left Illinois (and farming) in search of a different life. They first landed in Bonham, Texas where Zeph worked for the Texas & Pacific Railroad and then gradually made their way to Denton arriving, on Aug. 1, 1888.

Z. got a job with the railroad and was foreman in charge of the track department for 12 years. In 1901, he was appointed Street Commissioner for the City of Denton.¹ His job was to keep up the roads and sidewalks in town. Back then, sidewalks were either made from oak planks, flagstones or brick. Wiggs advised the city council that he could have “good durable sidewalks using gravel and oak plank curbing that would cost 10¢ per foot.”²

There was a great need for sidewalks back then, especially after a rain. The photo below is a shot of the Wiggs home, but this one allows you to see the oak plank curbing filled with crushed rocks next to the dirt road. Now, imagine getting to your house in the rain without sidewalks in a sea of mud.

Portrait of Wiggs’ Family Home at the corner of Blount and McKinney Streets in Denton, Texas, photograph, 1912; (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth14760/, University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.

In his down time, Zeph did things.

For instance, in 1895, he caught an alligator in Pecan Creek and brought it home, but it later died.³

And in between 1896 to 1903, he filed four patents with the U.S. Patent Office for things ranging from a “Shaft-Tug” to a “Railway Cattle-Guard”. The Railway Cattle-Guard was filed Aug. 19, 1896 and was listed as patent No. 579,507 with the United States Patent Office.

Wiggs, Zeph. Railway Cattle – Guard, patent, November 23, 1897; [Washington D.C.]. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth513922/, University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

After his 16 years as street commissioner were up, Z. turned in his resignation – several times – but the city refused to acknowledge it and kept him on until finally, “he asked for a leave of absence and never returned, continuing private contract work.”⁴

The Justin-Ponder-Krum Road being graveled in 1913 by the Z. Wiggs crew; texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth12462/, University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.

Looking at the photos we have in our collection, I have to say that building roads back then was not for sissies. Nor was it an easy thing to accomplish at that time: materials were very expensive, they could be hard to obtain, and you had to have the means to haul them.

When he started the job, the City only paid for one person to do the work. In 1903, they realized that more help was needed and hired two others to help him out. The “street force” grew as the needs for improvements to sidewalks and roads grew.

Photo of Z. Wiggs and his “street force” laying the base for paving on E. Hickory St. in Denton, Texas, 1910; texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth12580/, University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.

By 1920, roads had become a major issue: “On January 1, 1910 there was a total of 52 automobiles in Denton County. Ten years later, January 1, 1920, there were about 2,800. As the number of autos increased, the general demand for good roads increased. In 1910 there was practically not a foot of good roads in the entire county in the modern sense. By 1920 the situation in this respect was not materially changed… not much was done about road improvement until after the close of the war.”⁶

But enough about roads.

Zeph and Rachel were married for 59 years and had ten children, five of whom died at early ages. Their daughter, Ruth (below, 4th from the left) passed in 1928.

Z. Wiggs and family at his home on Blount Street which used to run from McKinney to Mulberry (close to and parallel to Bell Ave.). -Photo Denton Public Library, Special Collections Department

Zeph intrigues me. I picture this man always busy with work and ideas, sketching on pieces of paper that remain tacked to the walls and then taking long drives through Denton County in his Dodge Roadster⁶, testing out the roads with a grandkid by his side and talking about possibilities.

And maybe that, was how the idea for the dog came about.

 

Leslie Couture, Special Collections

Leslie.Couture@cityofdenton.com

Notes:

¹ City Council Minute Bk. 1900 to 1907, p.41.

² “Civic Improvement League. The Organization Will Make an Effort to Thoroughly Clean Up the City.” Denton County News, 18 June, 1903, p.1.

³“From Whence He Came.” Denton County News, 18 July, 1895, p.5.

⁴“Mr. and Mrs. Z. Wiggs.” Denton Record-Chronicle, 3 August, 1938, p.3.

⁵Bridges, Clarence Allen. “History of Denton: From Its Beginnings to 1960.” Texian Press, 1978, p.286.

⁶ “Diamond Cords Give Good Service.” Denton Record-Chronicle, 27 November, 1922, p.8.