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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-06-09 Historical Preservation Committee Minutes June 9,2008 CALL TO ORDER Co-Chair, Donna Mickan, called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m. The meeting was held at City Hall in the Pre-Council Chamber at 201 North Ector Drive, Euless, Texas. MEMBERS PRESENT Norma Lively, Donna Mickan, Doris Brown, Shirley Mercer, Iva Nail, Mavy Wright, Ralph Williamson, Robert Nail, David Massey, Troy Fuller, Tom Stover, Sue Stover, Helen Lightbody, Weldon Cannon, Gary Fieldsend, Dan Clark, Helen Gleghorn, Don Martin. RECOGNITION OF VISITORS Council Member Leon Hogg Mayor Pro Tern Linda Martin Pattie Benoit STAFF PRESENT Gary McKamie, City Manager Trish McDonald, Intern Michael Davenport, Special Events/Projects Supervisor Ofa"Mary" Faiva-Siale, Projects Coordinator APPROVAL OF MINUTES Troy Fuller made a motion for the minutes to be approved. Ralph Williamson seconded the motion, motion approved. TREASURER'S REPORTS Treasurer Robert Nail reported the following: • $150.00 was given to Betty Fuller for purchase of materials for the Photo Album Project. • $348.78 was reimbursed to David Brown for the purchase of prizes for Arbor Daze. • A total of$127.00 has been collected for the Trigg tile and it has been deposited. • The current balance is $7,014.06. DOCENT'S REPORT/RECRUITMENT 1. Docents for Saturday, June 14, 2008 open house are David Massey, Sue Stover and Tom Stover. Staff will open the Museum. EHPC Mtg. 060908 2. Docents for Saturday, July 12, 2008 are David Brown(1-3 p.m.), Gary Fieldsend and Shirley Mercer. 3. Docents for Saturday, August 9, 2008 are Donna Mickan, Betty Fuller and Helen Lightbody. 4. Betty Fuller, Donna Mickan and Helen Payton volunteered to docent on July 2, 2008 at 10 a.m. for the HEB Early Learning Center tour. STATUS OF CURRENT PROJECTS 1. Library History Wall: This is an ongoing project and everything is moving along well. The project is doing so well that many of the tiles have already been purchased even though the project has not been made available to the public. Various people were mentioned as purchasers of different tiles. The Library Foundation paid for the Himes Log House tile. 2. Calloway Cemetery: • David Massey has seventy-six names currently on the contact list. Iva Nail has been working on her contact cards and will turn them in, in the near future. • The Survey Sub-Committee will meet at the Parks and Community Services building on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 10 a.m. to work on the project. 3. Oral History Project: Staff completed transcribing Riley Warren Fuller's interview. A copy of the interview was given to Troy Fuller to proof and return to staff. Mrs. Fuller will also be given a copy to proof. Original tapes (2) of the interview were given to Donna Mickan. Trish McDonald has been instrumental in transcribing the interview. 4. City Website Update: Staff previously asked Weldon Cannon to proof the information on the Euless History page. Mr. Cannon noted some erroneous information on the descriptions currently displayed. It was agreed that the website could be better streamlined to flow better, corrections needed to be added and a few other suggestions were made by the Committee. Mr. Cannon will work with staff on improvements to the webpage. 5. Photography Project: Dan Clark displayed several photographs of old homes in the area. Don Martin took the photographs; descriptions were not available on the homes. Committee members were asked for information if they recognized any of the homes. Other interesting photographs were also displayed including one of the railroad station that used to be in Tarrant and another showed two gentlemen, one was a Fuller. Mr. Clark obtained some of these photographs from the "Portal to Texas History"website. 6. Photo Album Project: The Sub-Committee will meet at the Fuller House on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 10 a.m. to continue working on the project. Doris Brown, Helen Gleghom, Donna Mickan, Sue Stover and Betty Fuller are in the Sub-Committee. 7. Photo Scanning Project: Mr. Clark displayed the current count of everything that has been scanned for the historical files. Staff reported that work has started on the"Schools" album. Trish McDonald has been doing a great job on scanning the albums. EHPC Mtg. 060908 8. Library Photo Display: A description and photograph of the McGinnis Gas Station is the June display. A photograph of the display was shown to the Committee. 9. Donation Status: • • Mrs. Nail will bring the picture book by Roger Ivey as a donation later. • Robert Nail spoke with Dale Davis, the donor of Blackie Sustaire's desk. Mr. Fuller reported that Mr. Davis owned the first pawn shop in Euless. Mrs. Mickan spoke with Police Chief Mike Brown, about a place to display the desk. Mrs. Mickan felt that the Ruth Millican Center foyer might be a good place to display the desk. It was discussed that possibly someone would volunteer to pick up the desk from the donor. Staff reminded the Committee that Mr. Davis has a friend that travels to Euless frequently and that it was mentioned at the previous meeting that he could bring the desk down and the Committee could pick it up from him. Staff can pick up the desk from Mr. Davis if this was still a possible option. 10. Local Marker Project: Weldon Cannon reported on the following: • Work on the First Baptist Church of Euless marker still continues. The church was founded in 1904; other important historical facts were also mentioned. Mr. Cannon felt the rich history of the church makes it a good candidate for acquiring a marker. • Passed out copies of an article from Temple, Texas about the Temple Historic Marker program. The marker program is designed to recognize historically significant structures within the City. • Mr. Cannon has approved the final marker inscription for the "Commercial Horticulture in Euless" marker and it's on its way to the foundry. The marker has been paid for by Mr. Cannon. The marker will be placed at Mr. Cannon's property across from South Euless Elementary School. Copies of the text for the marker were provided for those who wanted a copy. • Mr. Cannon finished writing the marker inscription for The Euless School (1913 — 1955) marker last week. Severe editing on the written draft still needs to be done. Approval from the H.E.B. Independent School District still needs to be acquired for the marker to go at South Euless Elementary School. The Marker will cost approximately two thousand dollars. Mr. Cannon estimates that the application process will be completed by the end of this year. 11. Pattie Benoit suggested that the "Impact of Aviation on Euless" may be a subject of interest and good for further consideration by the Committee. The Committee agreed that this is definitely an idea worth pursuing. Mr. Cannon and Mr. Clark further agreed and pointed out how DFW Airport has affected Euless' culture, economy, traditions, etc. Mr. Cannon indicated that this may be a good topic to consider for another Texas States Historical Marker. 12. Road Name Change Request: With regards to the road name change request that the Bear Creek Cemetery Association made last month, Mr. Cannon requested a formal letter of request from the Association in order to make a formal presentation to the Historical Preservation Committee. The formal request was not made; Mr. Cannon however, reported that since the last meeting, he heard the road's name has been changed from Minters Chapel Road to Bear Creek Cemetery Road. Donna Mickan spoke with Gary McKamie and it was determined that the cemetery is actually on airport property and does not belong EHPC Mtg. 060908 to the City. In general, everyone felt the request has probably been taken care through the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. 13. Timeline: Mr. Cannon is still working on the Euless Timeline. MCCORMICK BARN/OUTDOOR UPDATE 1. Staff indicated that a well is being worked on for Heritage Park per the Committee's requests. Dan Dearborn with the Parks Department will be working on the project. 2. Parks has replaced and tightened the blades on the windmill. The planks at the top of the windmill were also replaced. HIMES LOG HOUSE UPDATE FULLER HOUSE UPDATE CO-CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 1. Donna Mickan congratulated Mavy Wright on her appointment to the Historical Preservation Committee. It was made official on May 27, 2008. 2. Thanked the Parks and Community Services Department for their continuous support to the Committee. 3. Also thanked the Committee for their continued attendance and help with the various historical projects. COMMITTEE REPORTS 1. Weldon Cannon expressed his appreciation that the oral history records are being conducted, transcribed and kept as a part of the City's permanent records. He very much appreciated the efforts of staff and the Committee on this project. He noted the importance of keeping such records for references and footnoting in the future. 2. Mavy Wright inquired to the status of identifying all the artifacts at the Museum. Co-Chair Donna Mickan wondered if perhaps a separate log book with descriptions of all the items in the Museum could be made. In general it was agreed that with so many artifacts in the Museum, it may look cluttered and should name plates and/or tags be put up for every item. It was generally agreed that some important pieces should be identified with a description plaque and the rest could be noted in a separate log book. Mrs. Wright was asked to head a project to select pieces to be tagged, do brief write ups about each piece and staff will have name plaques made for the selected pieces. 3. Sue Stover inquired as to who approves how new donations are being accepted by the Committee. It was verified that a Sub-Committee had been set up around three years ago to oversee donations and Bill Byers is the Chair of the Sub-Committee. In general though, it was pointed out that most donations are being accepted without much restriction. Donation forms are filed by staff at the Parks and Community Services office. EHPC Mtg.060908 4. Ralph Williamson offered to set up a meeting between Don Bloom and Gary McKamie regarding the old Mosier Valley School building. Mr. Bloom belongs to the same VFW Post that Mr. Williamson belongs to. Mr. Williamson indicated that Mr. Bloom would know who to get in contact with regarding the school building earlier discussed by Mr. McKamie. 5. Troy Fuller recalled a humorous incident that occurred in the 70's. He talked about the early days when Love Field and Old Southwest Airport were the airports in the area. There used to be a ranch called King Ranch nearby. One day, the Ranch herded hundreds of cattle to the airport, a"bunch of people" gathered to watch as all the cattle were herded into a 747 and put in to various compartments inside the airplane. Everyone stood and watched as the airplane"waddled" about trying to take off, it was so heavy. Mr. Fuller laughingly joked that they never thought the airplane would be able to take off that day. The Committee enjoyed Mr. Fuller's recounting of the event. 6. Ralph Williamson recalled that he worked the first aircraft that landed at DFW Airport after it was built. The first airplane to land at DFW landed on January 14, 1974 at 12 a.m. It was a flight from Little Rock, Arkansas to Dallas Fort Worth. 7. A May 23, 2008 Star Telegram article was passed around by Weldon Cannon. The article was about the huge development about to take place in the "river bottom" area. This area used to be Tarrant and was annexed by Arlington years ago. Historically this used to be a part of Euless. Mr. Cannon mentioned the upcoming project as an FYI and a reminder of how this will bring more changes to the dynamics of Euless and its surrounding schools. 8. Mrs. Nail added that some people in the room hadn't had a chance to meet Weldon Cannon's wife, Patti Benoit. Ms. Benoit was introduced to the newer Committee members who hadn't had a chance to meet her. 9. Robert Nail gave a reminder for members to drop their loose change in the Trigg Tile donation box. The Committee previously agreed that since there were no known Triggs in the area, a donation box would be set up to collect spare change for the purchase of the tile. The tile will cost approximately $600. It was decided that what ever balance is left after the collection,the Committee would pay for it out of the treasury fund. Mavy Nell Trigg Wright has expressed her interest in purchasing the Trigg Tile. 10. Doris Brown attended Midway Park Elementary School's 40th anniversary. She has photos of the event for the Committee's collection. She further noted that the building was the first round school building ever built in Euless. The building was so expensive to build that afterwards, no other building of this type was ever built. VISITORS REPORT 1. Pattie Benoit brought up the topic of"Heritage Plants in North East Tarrant County" as a subject the Committee might be interested in for future review and consideration. STAFF REPORT EHPC Mtg.060908 1. City Manager Gary McKamie spoke with Frank Moss, a Fort Worth City Council Member, about the old Mosier Valley School building. The City of Fort Worth is interested in acquiring the building and property for its historical significance. Weldon Cannon and other members spoke with assurance that the building was moved out of Mosier Valley and relocated to Bedford, on Bedford Euless Road. No one knows who owns the building and it was reported that it has been re-painted red and no one is sure what it's currently being used for. It was mentioned that Betty Fuller might know who owns the building. Weldon Cannon and others in the Committee were very glad to hear that Fort Worth is interested in preserving the building. 2. Staff will market the "History of Euless in Pictures Exhibition" as a special event. It will be in the winter edition of Euless Today. The event will be on Saturday,November 8, 2008 during regular open house hours, 1 —5 p.m. The Ruth Millican Center will be used to display the photograph exhibit. Gary Fieldsend has gathered information on the topic of aviation and will do a presentation on the subject during the event. 3. Reported that Beth and James Gathings called,they could not attend today's meeting. 4. With summer here and the Texas heat as it is, staff cautioned the Committee to keep hydrated and drink lots of fluid when serving as docents and spending long hour's outdoors. 5. Staff will schedule an interview with Council Member Leon Hogg to record an interview on the history of Arbor Daze. 6. Staff offered congratulations to Mr. Cannon and the Committee on acquiring the latest Texas State Historical Marker for the First United Methodist Church of Euless. 7. The Christmas Parade will have a new category in the awards presented to float winners. It will be an award for the float that best ties to the history of Euless and it will be called Best Historical Ties to Euless Award. ADJOURNMENT Troy Fuller made a motion for the meeting to adjourn. Don Martin seconded the motion. Motion approved. The meeting adjourned at 11:20 a.m. Respectfully submitted by Ofa"Mary" Faiva-Siale Projects Coordinator Euless Parks & Community Services EHPC Mtg. 060908