Grayson County TXGenWeb

William Richard White Sr.

William Richard White Sr. born in Arkansas on July 4, 1867, had married twenty-year-old Mattie Platt of Fillmore, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, on June 22, 1892. They lived in Bonham, where their oldest daughter was a school chum of Sam Rayburn, later speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Many decades later, White's imaginative, energetic approach to marketing agricultural commodities was still remembered in Bonham. An obituary published in 1951 noted:

White, who came to Denison from Bonham, was known there as a real friend to the farmers. He established the W. R. White Produce Co. there, which developed into one of the largest in North Texas. He first shipped by express to New Orleans, but later shipments went out in car lots to all parts of the United States, with principal markets in New Orleans, New York City, St. Louis, Chicago, El Paso, and San Francisco.

He put a number of specially built and equipped wagons on the road to take dry goods and groceries right to the doors of farmers in the section near Bonham, and in turn picked up all their poultry and eggs. His business was a turkey dressing center at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he was the first man in the area to drive large droves of turkeys overland from nearby locations to Bonham.

R. D. Owens of Bonham, who was employed by White as a boy when White operated the Bonham Bottling Works, remembers the old style spring stoppers used for the "soda pop." He also remembers that White devised a machine for candling eggs by using sunlight reflected in a mirror. At that time there was no electricity to use for the purpose.

Later, White saw the possibility of killing rabbits that had become a pest to the farmer, and shipping them to New Orleans for food. Owens remembers seeing wagon loads of rabbits being brought to the White company and being shipped immediately by express. "He put Bonham on the map as a rabbit center," Owens states, "and newspapers all over the nation carried stories about Bonham and the rabbit industry there."

White was the first man to buy and ship potatoes out of Fannin County in car lots. He also handled all the strawberries raised by growers in the Bonham area.

After the turn of the century, the couple moved to Denison from Bonham with their three children. These were Mavis White (later Clymer), born June 17, 1893; James Platt White, born December 6, 1895; and William Richard "Dick" White Jr., born November 3, 1897. The Whites had three more children after coming to Denison. They were Louisa White (later Ramsey), born April 7, 1902; Julius Been White, born November 18, 1904 (a girl who died on April 30, 1916, at the age of eleven); and Martha White (later Parker), born March 27, 1908.

Loyd Mathis worked for Mr. White during the 1920s and 1930s in Abilene, Texas. Early in 1942 Loyd and his wife and 3 children (Gloria, Wendell and Jimmie) moved to Denison, Texas from Lubbock to work for the Denison Produce. (The Denison Press, January 10, 1942)

In 1943 Loyd Mathis was transferred to a new Denison Poultry & Egg plant in Birmingham, Alabama. Later that year Loyd received his draft notice and entered the Army. His family moved from Birmingham back to Abilene, Texas.

Mrs. W. R. White Sr. always called her husband "Mr. White." Each morning she would rise early to prepare biscuits "from scratch" and a large breakfast. When Mr. White was ready to be served his breakfast, he would bang on the floor next to their bed with his cane. Then his wife would prepare the breakfast on a tray and take it in for him to eat in bed. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren called the couple "Mama and Papa White."

Mr. White died on February 27, 1951. After Mr. White's death, his wife continued to live at 1011 West Bond Street, in their shingled Bungalow-style home filled with Mission oak furniture and her hand-crocheted doilies, until her death on June 16, 1958.

216 North Houston Avenue (1906)

This site on the southeast corner of East Gandy Street and North Houston Avenue, at 100 East Gandy Street or 216 North Houston Avenue, was the home of Michael and Maggie Hanna, who built a home there in 1873.

In 1906, White purchased the Hanna home, demolished it, and erected the White Produce Company. White became known as the "Texas Turkey King" and once owned 340 distributorships in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. He once sent more live turkeys by rail to New York than ever had been shipped previously. He lost one million dollars when his historic haul broke the turkey market.

After some nineteen years in business, in 1925, White closed the White Produce Company and went to live with relatives in Wichita Falls. Later he lived for a time in Abilene. He returned to Denison and perhaps was involved with his son-in-law's business, the Denison Poultry and Egg Company at 131 East Morton Street.

by Mavis Anne Bryant, January 2001