Jones County Texas Archives - Bryant - Link Company - 1929 *********************************************************** Submitted by: Dorman Holub Date: 19 January 2020 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/jones/jonestoc.htm *********************************************************** The Stamford American Friday, August 30, 1929 Vol. 6, Number 20 Stamford Home of the Bryant-Link company The fine new building now occupied by the Bryant-Link Company completed early this years. Besides the Stamford store, it houses the general offices of the firm. (old WTU building). J.C. Bryant has 45 years of successful merchandising. Mr. Bryant was born on a farm in Missouri where he spent his boyhood days. He came to Texas while still a very young man locating at Anson where he opened a store a few days after his arrival. The story of the gradual successful growth of the little store founded by J.C. Bryant of Anson in 1884 to the present. It must be remembered that Anson was a small village in 1884 and this whole section of the country was sparsely settled. Mr. Bryant pioneered as a merchant in the same degree as the stockmen and farmers of the West pioneered. Bernard Bryant has advanced from clerk to General Manager R. Bernard Bryant, vice presient and genral manager of the Bryant-Link Company, has devoted his entire time since leaving school to the service of the company founded by his father, J.C. Bryant, at Anson in 1884. He has lived in West Texas, all his life having been born in Anson, February 12, 1889. Bryant’s public school training was received in Anson and Stamford. After graduating from the Stamford High School, he attended Austin College, Sherman, for two years. Mr. Bryant began as dry goods clerk in the Stamford store in 1907. In1909 he was made manger of the company’s store at Spur. He was promoted to secretary-treasurer of the company in 1910, which position he held until 1915 when he became manager of the Stamford Store. He was promoted to vice-president and general manager of the entire system in 1921. Institution of J.C. Bryant now in 45th year of service In 1901 the business was incorporated under the firm name of Baker-Bryant Company. The name ws changed again in 1920 and the firm became known as Bryant-Link Company. The Stamford store was opened in1900, a very short time after the town was started, in a frame building fronting 50 feet. Later the front was increased to 100 feet and a stone building was erected. The stone building housed the firm until in the late fall of 1928 when it was town down tomake room for the present magnificent structure that is generally admitted to be the best single-story building in West Texas. In the fall of 1900, a branch store opened in Aspermon, makeing the third store for the firm. George S. Link became identified with the firm in 1901. A store was opened in Munday in 1902 and in 1906 stores were opened in Rule and Rochester; George S. Link beoming manager of the Rule store remaining there until 1910. Soon after the completeion of the Stamford and Northwestern Railroad from Stamford to Jayton, the firm opened a store in Jayton and Spur when the railroad reached there in 1910. Knox City was added to the lst in 1914, followed by Post in 1917. In more recent years stores have been opened at Snyder, Ralls, Petersburg, Afton, Swenson, Crosbyton, Rotan and Hamlin. During the oil boom stores were opened in Caddo, Breckenridge, Albany and Sipe Springs all of which have been discontinued. Tells of incidents in Early History of Bryant-Link and Stamford Country Original Survey Lines Here Were Run on Horsebakc Frank Huey tells of loss of church wagon and fat wild turkey by will Luce Sweethearts on Parade - We all enjoyed this catchy tune as the pretty girls marched to its harmonious strains in the Bryant-Link show thsi spring. Bryant-Link is older than gold Plume. when J.C. Bryant came to this county in1884, Gold Plume was not sold in Stamford There was no Stamford to sell it in. Shinnery covered our great city and Frank Huey, kinsman of the Bryant and now City Secretary of Anson, was employed under Martin DuVal more Bryant kin, in surveying Jones County lines hereabouts for S.M. Swenson. The original lines of the Brazos & Buffalo Bayou railroad land grant, bought by Swenson, had beenrun back in the 1850s on horseback. The surveyor timed the stride of a horse and if he walked a mile in 15 minutes through the shinnery, an hour’s walk of that horse was a section, hit or miss; and the searchers for corner stones or monuments 30 years later encountered crossword puzzles of gigantic proportions. mr. Huey spoke feelingly of losing the survey chuck wagon, laden with fat wild turkey, Friday morning. The surveying party found that church wagon Sunday afternoon, and in the meantime a large part of their menu had consisted of parched corn and rancid bacon found in an abandoned cabin. And tereh was no Gold Plume Coffee to mitigate the unpalatableness. ColbertÕs Buffalo Meat Speaking of shinnery: When the writer first moved to Stamford he asked R.V. Colbert for akey to his buffalo pasture so that his two older sons might ride out Saturday and Take a look at the Last of the Bisons. Mr. Colbert courteously offered the keep but said the boys would be lucky if they found the animals at the end of a week’s hard riding. He said when he first bought nine buffaloes, along about 1918, he turned them loose in the shinnery in which their ancestors had thrived, as an experiment. Had he not sold or killed or given away any of them the original herd would by now, 1929, have increased to 55 head. He says they are very hardy and require no feed at all and that all of the herd are as gentle as ordinary range cattle though their pature is practically as wild as it was in primeval days. Ranch headquarters keep one buffalo at the barn as a pet and it will eat out of your hand. Probably Mr. colbert won’t use buffaloes for milk cows, an experiment that Buffalo Jones tried once, but only once. Buffalo Jons fastened his buffalo cow in the same barn with regular milk cows, but forgot to mention that fact to a new milkhand. After a load uproar at the cow barn, the new milkhand limpted back to the house with a battered wreck of a bucket and said “Wht’s left of me is quittin”. That thar brown heifer totes the beatneest stout box stall.” Mr. colbert is vice president of Bryant-Link Col. and every now and then he regales the Bryant-Linkers from all the store with buffalo barbecue washed down by Gold Plume Coffee. The Stamford Grocery Departmet of the company is now managed by Henry McCauley, who has been with Bryant-Link for 10 years.