Grayson County TXGenWeb

Denison's Oldest Former Mayor
Also Security Building Veteran

There are at least two - and perhaps more - men still very present and accounted for who had a hand in construction of the Security building more than 60 years ago.

A Herald story last Sunday about only one builder surviving caused Denison's oldest living former mayor to come forth as another veteran of Security building erection.

He is W.F. (Billy) Weaver of 220 East Morgan who first came to Denison five years after the town's establishment and who worked several years later on the state's tallest building as a tinner.

R.N. Grammar front porch
Denison, Texas
July 27, 1904

Bill Weaver, Frank Slagle, Daddy Weaver, Burr Weaver
Frank Weaver, Daily Slagle, Lou, Inez, Raymond, Fannie, Johnny
Mrs. R. N. Grammar, Lyda Weaver, Bob Slagle, John Slagle, Hazel Weaver

Now a retired plumber, Weaver recalls that his first job on the Security building was driving a little mule that powered the elevator lifting bricks to the workmen. "The mule plodded back and forth along Burnett avenue raising and lowering the platform that carried the bricks." Weaver said.

"The building was up to the second floor when I started to work." the ex-mayor remembered. After a few days Weaver started as a tinner and remained until this work was completed.

NOBODY KILLED

He remembers that Ed and John Leeper and J.T. Boldrick, the builders, hired a French architect by the name of LeLardo to design the structure. After completion of the building, the first floor was occupied by the Hall-Leeper hardware firm and the upper floor stories by offices.

Although the building then was something of a sensation as the state's tallest, Weaver recalls that "We didn't have much trouble getting men to work on it. People were more daredevils then." He doesn't remember that any workmen got killed, even seriously hurt, on the project.

Weaver, who will be 80 next August, was born in LaGro, Ind., on the banks of the Wabash River, and came to Denison with his parents and sister in 1879. The family returned to Indiana after the death of the mother and again came to Denison in 1889, after the father's remarriage.

After working on the A.N. Rhamy farm east of Denison and picking berries for Art and Charles Hopkins, Weaver went to work for Pat Tobin at the cotton compress. Wanting to be a plumber, he attended the old Harshaw Academy to get the necessary additional schooling and went to work for Chris Waltz firm June 7, 1892.

QUIT AFTER 29 YEARS

He recalls with a chuckle that, 29 years and 6 months later, he told his boss he was quitting to enter his own business, and Waltz lamented that "Every time I get a good man, he quits."

The Weaver plumbing shop was first located at 104 West Main and moved to various Main street and other addresses before winding up at 501 South Crockett avenue, where his son, Johnnie Weaver, now operates a tire vulcanizing shop.

Weaver married Miss Fannie Slagle here 58 years ago last August. The couple have lived at their present home more than half a century.

One two-year term as mayor was Weaver's only fling in politics. And he was more or less pushed into that, not having any idea of running for mayor until friends notified him on the telephone that he had been nominated. He served in 1921-22, which marked a very hectic Denison period because of a railroad strike that plunged Denison under a martial law that was enforced by a whole task force of National Guards.