Sherman Steam Laundry

 When Ben McBride founded the Sherman Steam Laundry (SSL) on the south side of the Courthouse Square in 1888, it was the second steam laundry in Texas. Formally incorporated in 1895, the business then was located at 400-408 West Jones Street. Officers were Ben McBride, president; Lon McKown, vice president; and Eugene Cherry (1864–1943), secretary-treasurer. At that time, all work was done by hand.

Construction of the new Sherman Steam Laundry building in 1901 (at 301-15 West Lamar, or 200-208 South Rusk) reflected a national shift from home washtub to machine-equipped factory for getting linens and clothes clean. The new Sherman Steam, Laundry facility, with its high ceilings, open sides, powerful fans, and overhead ventilation, was designed to minimize the major dangers of laundry work: humidity, heat, accidents, fatigue, strong chemicals, and infection from handling soiled clothing. Pits accommodated drying ovens that were 10 to 25 feet wide. Tin canopies hung out over long loading docks on either side of the rectangular structure. Clients included a hospital and businesses.

In home laundries, one woman did all the tasks of washing, drying, and ironing. In a big steam laundry, labor was highly subdivided, with each person doing one small task over and over. Traditionally, laundry had been women’s work exclusively, but at the Sherman Steam Laundry men washed and women ironed. Workers had to stand for long periods, often operating heavy machinery. Irons weighed twenty pounds. Air-conditioning had not yet been invented.

In the late 1800s, the Sherman Steam Laundry employed 10 to 12 people. By 1917, over 90 employees worked there. Local legend says the Sherman Steam Laundry later had 200 workers. Certainly the neighborhood was laundry headquarters for a decade, as the National Steam Laundry took over the plant at Jones and Rusk when the Sherman Steam Laundry left.

Eugene Cherry had begun as a driver of the firm’s two-horse delivery trucks in 1888. Cherry became Sherman Steam Laundry president in 1929. By 1940, when he retired, he was president, treasurer, and general manager of the firm. He served as officer of both the Texas Laundry Owners Association and the American Institute of Laundrying. His half-brother, Luther Cherry, worked at the Sherman Steam Laundry until 1922, when he left to found Snow White Laundry in Denison.

Scott McKown (1898–1948; son of Lon) became Sherman Steam Laundry president in 1940. After he died in 1948, his widow, Charlse O. McClurg McKown (d. 1990), headed the business until it closed around 1975. Russell T. Smith was secretary-treasurer from the mid-1940s until 1975. Then the building served as a warehouse for a time. 

“Turk” Daveshori’s conversion of the Sherman Steam Laundry building into offices in the late 1970s reflected a love affair with exposed brick, inside and out. Complemented by hardwood floors, white walls defined small rooms. Windows were replaced and electric heating and air conditioning installed. Large original beams had no trouble supporting a mezzanine to add square footage. A loft was created in what is now the Boiler Room Coffee House. Gerald Middents owned the building in the 1980s.

The former carriage house behind the Sherman Steam Laundry forms the core of spaces now housing the U.S. Department of Agriculture Service Center. Among its components are the Farm Service Agency, National Resources Conservation Service, Choctaw Watershed Water Improvement District, and Upper Elm—Red Soil and Water Conservation District.

Fire Station #2 (excerpts)
By Mavis Ann Bryant
Texoma Living Online

Tom and Karen own, among other enterprises, the Boiler Room, an art-filled coffee house on a key street funneling cars from Highway 75 to Sherman's Courthouse Square, where gourmet coffees along with delicious food is the usual far.  The local business was voted the "Best of Texoma 2013".  The Boiler Room occupies the west end of the Sherman Steam Laundry building, which was constructed in 1901.

After purchasing the building which housed office space, Tom and Karen update the building and professionals, such as lawyers, accountants, doctors, dentists, counselors and Tom's insurance business - occupy the suites.  A carriage house out back has expanded over the years to accommodate more tenants.

At the west end of the laundry building, one space remained unused - the former boiler room of Sherman Steam Laundry.  In August 2005, Tom and Karen began work to turn it into a coffee house.

The Boiler Room opened in December 2005.  Here college students peck at laptops, poets exchange drafts, business people confer intently.  Today, in addition to coffee and tea, t he shop offers sophisticated sandwiches, soups, salads and baked good.  Occasional live jazz and changing artworks enliven the scene.

MEMORIES OF GARY HESTAND

"Myself, growing up outside of Dallas( about 2 hours away driving 70 mph); yet with younger brother Steve in tow, we found ourselves making the near routine bi-weekly travels with our Mom going to see her mother and father, Eula and Charles H. Myers, in Sherman.  You see, Charles Myers, was my grandfather and he began working at the laundry in 1918; and worked there until it closed in 1974.

The layout and assembly of the boiler room being on the end, with the "machinist's) machine room being next and then the engine room - all for good reason!  Boilers were a pressurized vessel, pressure being a result from heating the water and making steam to drive the engine, with the condensed steam providing hot water as a by-product for the laundry.  And from time to time, boilers had been known to "blow" - and it was found best to keep them on the end of the building for good reasons!

The boiler had to be inspected annually, where someone would crawl inside through a small hatch door and check the tubes for cracks and the rivets for being tight.  The State of Texas had a required boiler inspection (by a boiler inspector) maybe annually.  And Grandpa would have to completely shut down the heat, drain it down so it could cool off for the inspector to crawl inside - which was always a tedious task that impacted the laundry - because you could not just "turn it back on" to start the laundry for the next day....it took a while to heat up.

The old steam engine was a two valve, single piston that had a name plate "59HP Cordless" on the side.  Before electricity, the building had a line-shaft that ran through the length of the building, giving all of the mechanical components a single source of rotational power from underneath.  The line shaft had pillar and pedestal bearings that were poured with Babbitt.

Sometime in the infancy of electricity, our first endeavors were with direct current, D.C. power; hence, a D.C. generator being installed just aft of the flywheel - mostly for lighting I would have assumed.  The earlier belts were made of leather, later being replaced with neoprene.

Anyway, I'm guessing sometime in and around the 40s, alternating current (A.C. power) became the norm; hence the need to upgrade the power system to an A.C. generator.  When they did, t hey simply installed the new generator further rear of the D.C. unit and when the new belt went on - it simply created a larger triangle beyond and over the D.C. generator's pulley; which as a kid, I though was a really cool use/design.