Historic Buildings of Waco, Texas by Kenneth Hafertepe (review)

Abstract

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Reviewed by:

• Historic Buildings of Waco, Texas by Kenneth Hafertepe
• Maggie Valentine

Historic Buildings of Waco, Texas. By Kenneth Hafertepe. ( College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2023. Pp. 320. Photographs, maps, appendices, bibliography, index.)

To those who can see beyond the atrocities of the Branch Davidians, the pop culture of the Dr. Pepper Museum as a cultural institution, and the current trendiness of Magnolia, the city of Waco, Texas, holds a treasury of 19^th-20^th-century architecture that reflects both national and regional trends. Professor Kenneth Hafertepe captures this history and demonstrates how to research it, in a well-documented sequel to his history of domestic architecture of the city. In contemporary photographs and solid text, the author reveals the built history of the city and demonstrates how both the history and the passage of time affect the present experience. As an architectural historian, he shows an appreciation of order, classification, and integration that is never sentimental, but connects the past and present.

Hafertepe draws heavily from primary and contemporary sources—how places were seen in the past, combined with beautiful contemporary photographs, showing how the buildings have changed with time, and accompanying text highlighting what makes them special and significant still. He uses primary sources, citations, and historical documents to great advantage, including Sanborn maps, guidebooks, and previous scholarship. The text supplements and complements the images, so they are more than coffee-table memories, but seen as vestiges of history still vital to the evolving urban context.

The city of Waco was laid out in 1849 and named for the native American village of Tawakoni (later spelled Hueco by the Spaniards) who first settled the site on the Brazos River, until they were driven out by the Cherokees who razed the existing settlement. It was famous in Anglo history as a frontier town with gambling halls, hotels, and a Methodist church. It was the site of race riots in the 1860s; an important stop on the cattle trails for the next two decades, playing a vital role in the Texas cotton industry; and a case study of urban renewal as a part of HUD's Model Cities program. It has been home to the bucolic Baylor University since 1886, the oldest university in Texas.

The architecture of Waco reflects almost every style and trend in post-Civil War American architecture, from early skyscrapers to Georgian Revival, Spanish American Revival, Mission Revival, and Regional Eclecticism, as well as some nice surprises. There is a wonderful homage to San Antonio's Mission San Jose done in 1928–1931 by Roy E. Lane, a surviving (although modified) Hippodrome movie theatre that originally dates to 1914, as well as the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Jewish Temple Rodef Sholem by MacKie & Kamrath, dedicated in 1961—all worth a visit. [End Page 371]

The photography is beautiful, the research extensive, the prose insightful, and the original sources invaluable to students and other researchers. His use of primary sources (including Sanborn maps) and contemporary accounts are invaluable for perspective and de riguer for students and lovers of architectural history. Primary sources give context, provide contemporary perspective, and are especially valuable for professional researchers, and anyone interested in the creation of a sense of place.

Maggie Valentine University of Texas at San Antonio [emeritus] Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association ...