Peggy, Texas Palo Alto College
Crystal Rangel, Grecia Contreras History 1302	Robert Hines November 7, 2006
Peggy, Texas

About Peggy:
Peggy was formally known as Hollywood, Texasand was founded in 1934 by Mr. Henry Smith and Mr. John Mowinkle. The name had to be changed because of complications with the post office since there was already a Hollywood, Texas. Smith then named the town after his daughter, Peggy. The population back at the time was about twenty to thirty people in a five mile radius. There were all workers of Smith and Mowinkle who were the owners of an eight thousand acre cotton gin and oil wells. One last thing, if you thought thirty people in the town was small, the population for Peggy in 2006 is one. That’s right folks only one person lives in this little town called Peggy along with his dog Jaco and cat, his name is Mr. Pete Boeing. Boeing is the present owner of the post office/store. Mrs. Mary Zunker works in Peggy at the little store/post office but she lives in another town small town called Fashing.   We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Henry Smith and John Mowinkle: Founders
Smith and Mowinkle first started out in the Army for about three years. After serving their duties in the army, they decided to move out to east Texas to work in oil fields. Since working the oil fields seemed easy they decided to start their own business working with oil wells and get workers for the cotton gin. After coming to an agreement, Smith and Mowinkle decided to take out a loan and purchase a big chunk of land, approximately eight thousand acres, which they named “Peggy”. Then they stared digging on the property looking for oil. Most holes that they dug up had oil. This is how they became rich oil farmers. [We interviewed Boeing and Zunker. Mr. Boeing is the owner and Mrs. Zunker is the present worker of the post office/store]

Post office/Store:
   Mr. and Mrs. Nichols built a little store in the town that   also became a post office. When the store was built Smith and Mowinkle went in search for workers to help with the farm.  Across the street from the store was a cotton gin. They needed people to help work the oil wells and the cotton gin. Since there were no houses around, Smith and Mowinkle built houses for the workers. The families were paid to live on their farm to work for them. Now the town only has a couple houses standing.   The post office/store was used for many things like a store to buy food, clothes, and supplies. Also the post office was used as a day care. Mr. and Mrs. Nichols were the past owners who lived upstairs. "When the adults would go out of town, Mrs. Nichols would take care of the kids in the town," Mrs. Zunker said. On weekend nights the workers would turn up the juke box to dance and drink. That was the way to have a good time and not think about work. Upstairs in this small store was everything they needed: two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen. Mr. Nichols was the post master since the early 1930's. Mr. Nichols had an ice house and went to Camplleton to pick up big blocks of ice and leave it in the ice house for the trains. When Mr. Nichols headed out to pick up the ice, Mrs. Zunker said, she remembers when she was young, "Lots of kids would go with Mr. Nichols to get the ice and ride in the back of his truck sitting on top of the block of ice." Of course he would put a big tarp over it but it was still cold and got their butts wet. The day before Mrs. Nichols went to San Antonio she asked the people if they needed anything that the store didn't have. Everyone made their list and she went to San Antonio to get them. The children considered Mr. and Mrs. Nichols grandparents to them. Since the old couple never had children, they treated the kids as if they were their own. When the people left to work, they dropped off the kids at the store and Mrs. Nichols took care of them. On the weekends they had a beer joint for the men and brought out the juke box for music to dance to. [We interviewed Mrs. Mary Zunker, present worker of the post office/store] We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

The Farm "The Mansion":
   On the ranch Smith and Mowinkle also got workers to build a house within a year. They paid the workers fifty cents a day. This was during the Great Depression, so many workers were looking for jobs. The only people that were offering jobs were Smith and Mowinkle. The house they were building was like a get away home to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Smith had a pilot to fly him around to this house they called a "Mansion." After a couple of years had passed, Mowinkle decided he didn't want to run the ranch any more and sold his part of the property to Smith. Smith kept running the ranch and added many new things to liven up the place. He got lots of Palomino horses, deer, and many other animals to run around the land. Smith planted feed for the cattle and no one was allowed to kill them, especially during hunting season. Smith also had wells and a bathhouse built. Every once in a while he got lots of blocks of ice, heated it up with a machine he had and let all the children in the town play for hours. After the workers were done from a long day's work they also got in to relax. The bathhouse that Smith made for the kids and workers is still there, but it doesn't have a lot of water like it used to have. By the 1950's the cotton had stopped growing but the workers still had a job working in the farm where the Mansion is. In the Mansion lived Smith, his wife, their daughter and a farm worker. The farm worker was a friend of Smith's and helped him run the farm. The Mansion is still to this day very beautiful with lots of trees and open land. The Mansion is a two story house with rock around the whole house. There is a big long fence from the entrance of the driveway to the end of the house. Everything was built from rock and not just little rocks big, huge beautiful rocks. The rocks were found on the land and were broken into pieces to build everything that is still there today, the house the fence and every other little detail added. There have only been two workers that have help run the farm since it was constructed. The first person was the worker who helped raise Peggy and the second person is still working there today. He is the only one who lives in the big Mansion along with his guard dog. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Donations:
  "Oro en Trigo", that is name of Henry Smith's saddle. It was a silver saddle with black smooth leather made in Hollywood just for him. He entered shows and won with his Palomino horse and the Oro en Trigo. At the parades he was known as the Grand Marshall. After Smith died, the saddle was just around the house, so a couple of years ago Peggy donated the Oro en Trigo to the Wifely Museum. It's just some extra information incase any of the readers would like to see it in person. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Cemetery:
  When entering the property on the right side of the drive way there is a cemetery big enough to hold three hundred people. The cemetery has one huge tree and the fence is made of rock all around it. Inside the cemetery only three people are buried, they are Mr. and Mrs. Henry Smith who were buried in the middle of the cemetery under a big tombstone with their names and the years they were born and died. Also, there was a worker who helped keep the farm going for many years. The worker was buried there because that was his last wish. He worked on that farm almost his whole life and help raised Peggy after Smith and his wife passed away. He was considered part of the family, especially to Peggy, since he raised her since she was a teen. The farm worker was buried under the big tree. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Sunrise Service:
  One of the biggest events the town had was the Sunrise Service. Next to the cemetery is still the big cross where Smith prepared a Sunrise Service and invited everyone to join him. People from the whole community went to his house, took food, drinks and lots of different deserts. Smith set up tables, chairs and gathered the things together to start the Sunrise Service. The people brought their favorite dishes and shared with everyone to enjoy. The town priest performed the service at the same time the sun came out. It was like a time to catch up on the talk, enjoy the food, and listen to the priest give his morning mass and watch the sun rise over the trees. The Sunrise Service was a way of Smith giving back to the people of the town and everyone who worked on the farm. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Segregation:
Back then in Peggy, segregation was not a big deal. There was no discrimination towards the blacks. There was not that many black people working in the cotton gins or the oil fields. The workers were manly Spanish-speaking farmers; either they were Hispanic or white folks. All the races worked together to earn money and helped each other to keep their jobs. Only on special seasons would Smith and Mowinkle bring blacks for cotton picking. The people treated each other the same and had nothing against each other. By keeping the oil wells and cotton gin running, it meant they still had a job and got paid. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker. 

Interviews: Mr. Pete Boeing
1. How long have you lived here in Peggy, Texas?

I lived about 2 miles down the road when I was a little boy. My father built this shop in front of the post office around 1947. We do mechanic work, truck, welding and dealership. We started to sell hay equipment around 1962. The country was farming, and had lots of cattle. We had trackers and hay equipment for all the farmers.

2. How many people live here in Peggy, Texas?

Actually live here in Peggy, its only me. My son will stay with me on certain days but he will go back to his home. I'm the only one now who lives in Peggy. I got a dog named Jaco and a cat.

3. What are some interesting things you have seen in the town throughout the years?

This shop I have now, well it used to be a cotton gin. The cotton gin got torn down because they moved it somewhere else. Then my dad bought it and built this shop right here. Its about five acres. The store across the street was already here since 1943 or 1945, somewhere around there. It sold everything from clothes, shoes, jewelry, anything you needed basically. Everything you bought was bought there at that store. They didn't have taxes on anything and we didn't have a paved road. The town used to be called Little Hollywood, but there was problems with another town with the same name so they changed it to Peggy, Texas. It was named after a man who owned lots of land here. He named it after his daughter Peggy. His name was H.R. Smith. All of this is slowing down with the farming so this is where we are at today.

4. We were told that a lot of the children who lived here would go to the farm and go to the lake that the man would make. Are you familiar with that?

You're talking about H.R. Smith who owned this land and had some wells they had drilled on his place. You could call it a swimming pool.It had cement in it and a diving board. Everyone would go to his farm and go swimming. Four people at a time would go camp out at least once a year. They would have a camp field. That was about 3 or 4 miles back here. [The shop] At that time he owned a lot of that country. He sold that part of but its still here.

5. So is he not in charge of the 8,000 acre land he owned.

He probably still owns about 6 to 7 thousand acres of the land. All this land around here was sold to the farmers.

Is there anything that I havent asked you that you think is good to know about this town?

If you only had seen it when I was a kid. Growing up here, You could not park around here because people would come to buy things from the store. When we lived in the farm we had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, the bathrooms were out houses. We didn't have anything back then. We never had air condition until I bought this house. [Next to the shop] Thats the first time I lived in a house with air condition. Also, we didn't have running water. When you took a bath you had to fill up a bucket of water and take it inside the house. We washed clothes by hand. It was interesting to see what we went through, the way we started out with small equipment and to now. A lot of changes which is good. I enjoyed it.

Photos: This coin machine was inside the store. It looks like it was used many years ago.
 
We decided to drive down the road and see what is the next closest stop and this is what we found.About a mile or so down the road was this place and on the sign it says Peggy/Fashing Civic Center. On the side there were swings as you can see on the picture.
  People from the city call the shop to ask for car parts. This shop is still running, so if you need any car parts, Mr. Pete is the person to look for in Peggy, Texas.  
Mail is still received here and sent out here.Crystal is entering Peggy, Texas. Now Grace is exiting Peggy, Texas. We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

The Smith family:
Henry Smith was born in Alice, Texas. He married at the age of fifty to a young townswoman that was in her late twenties. They had a little girl by the name of Peggy Smith. At the age of sixty-seven Smith died and left everything to Peggy. Since Peggy was only nineteen years old when he died, Smith put everything in a trust for her until she was thirty-five years old. She had help from close friends, workers and her mother. Smith's wife died in 1996. Peggy is now fifty-eight years old and to this day she still owns the farm. Although she no longer lives in the Mansion, she has hired someone to help her run the farm. There are not as many Palomino horses or farm animals any more, but it is still hard work to keep a farm going for so many years. Every once in a while Peggy still visits the place she owns, grew up at and the place she has so many memories from.[We could not find any photos of the Smith Family.] We interviewed Boeing and Zunker.

Links: Peggy, Texas
Also if you have any questions about Peggy, Texas feel free to email us. Crystal Rangel or Grecia Contreras    We had complications putting the video on the webpage. It had the interview of Mr. Pete, his shop and his post office/store.

Annotated bibliography:

1.Peggy, Texas

This website gave us so basic information to gives us an idea of what to ask the people in Peggy, about this town. This is actually the only website that has any information about Peggy.

2. Interviewed Mr. Pete Boeing.

He grew up in this town and now he is the only one who lives there along with his dog Jaco and cat.

3. Interviewed Mrs. Mary Zunker

She doesn't live in Peggy, But she works at the post office and grew up in Peggy.

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