I was born January 13, 1890, in Schulenburg, Fayette County, Texas.

My father was James Eddie Davis, of Schulenburg, Texas. He is buried in Schulenburg.

My Mother was Ida White Davis, also buried in Schulenburg.

My Grandfather was Jim Davis, who is buried in Schulenburg.

I was married on June 5th, 1913, to Annie S. Chatham. She was a teacher in the Booker T. Washington School when they had only four teachers, including the principal.

I have one child, a daughter, by a previous marriage. She is Beatrice Davis, who is married to S. M. Williams, and is living in Austin, Texas.

I came to Wichita Falls on November 3, 1914, and my first job was cutting weeds for a Mr. Sansbury, who ran a drug store. I had worked there two days when I was offered a job with the Fairview Hotel which was located on Scott Avenue, in the 1100 block, and was a three-story frame building. It eventually burned. I had left Schulenburg to look for a location and stopped in both Cameron and Red Oak, Texas. At Cameron, someone told me that Wichita Falls was a good town, so I worked my way here.

THE FLOOD OF 1915.

In the spring, or early summer, of 1915, there was a flood. Holliday Creek backed up Ohio Avenue to the old Post Office, now used as a Police Station, and on Scott Avenue to Tenth Street. The water was deeper on Scott and people could ride in boats. Some of them got out their wading boots. The boarders didn’t have to get out of the hotel, but I had to vacate the servant’s house at the rear. I had my clothes in a steamer trunk and I asked Old Man Johnson, who was running a one-horse public delivery wagon, if he would drive down the a11ey and pick up the trunk, but the alley was under water and he would not risk it: So I had to carry the trunk on my back and wade water that was knee deep. The water went down in a day or two.

In the fall, I picked cotton in South Texas and went from there to Grandfield, Oklahoma. There were several of us together and we took time about coming to Wichita Falls for groceries. One Saturday, when my turn came, I ran into A. W. Allen, who had charge of some rent houses for Kemp and Kell while I worked at the hotel. He used to get me to clean the houses when they were vacant and he liked my work. That Saturday, he offered me the job of head porter in the Kemp and Kell Building, a five-story building at Ohio and Eighth Streets, where the Holt Hotel is now. I went to work the following Monday. The City National Bank was in the building. Among those who officed there were: Dr. R. C. Smith, Dr. F.E. Thornburgh, a dentist, J. I. Staley, Bernard Martin, Nat Henderson, Dr. O. B. Kiel, Dr. Mike Walker and Dr. M. A. Beckman. Drs. Walker and Beckman were City and County physicians. Frank Cullum was also there, and Clint Wood.

The only paving was the wood blocks on Ohio and Indiana Avenues.

When the oil boom struck, the town was crowded. People were glad to get even a. little corner to open an office or start a business. Someone had on office on Wall Street, the alley behind the Kemp & Kell Building, and dozens walked the streets to find a place to live. There was a train that went to Burkburnett in the morning and came back late in the evening. The streets were crowded every day just like a circus. I worked in that building around five years.

Then Clint Wood built an office building on Scott and Eighth Streets, where the old Hyatt house had stood. His Secretary, Mr. Albert E. Myles persuaded me to work as head porter in their building, and I was there about two and a half years. The Robbins Company was a tenant, and a good many doctors had offices there until the hospital and other buildings were erected. The building was sold to Bob Waggoner and, in recent years, has become the home of the Wichita National Bank. I left that job to go into business for myself. I ran the Davis Drug Store on Park Street for nineteen and a half years.

When I came to Wichita Falls, the Presbyterian and Baptist Churches had already moved away from Indiana Avenue, and the old Baptist brick building housed a furniture store.

My people have better Church buildings than they used to have. Soon after I arrived, St. John’s Baptist Church moved into their building on Park Street. They had been wor-shipping in a basement that they called "the hole in the ground" out near the Foundry. The Gilbert Memorial Church left a frame Church on Park Street to occupy a brick Church on Bonner and Redwood, its present location. Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church replaced a frame building with a better one at the same location, Brick and Sullivan.