January 5 - 6, 1922 General Pershing Visits Mexia

- October 15, 2018

The Mexia Oil Boom and its influx of capital brought a myriad of improvements to the town, very quickly. It brought a lot of other stuff that wasn't so pleasant, to be sure, but that's not the subject of this post.

One of the primary issues of the day was the condition of the roads.

The roads even in dry conditions were rough going for those tiny little tires on the 1920s automobiles.

But when it would rain heavily, everything was bogged down with mud, to the point of paralysis.

A few photos shared on Old Time Mexia Photographs of the problem illustrates it far better than words:

The prior six months, the Mexia papers carried progress of the City's bond issue to begin paving the streets of Mexia. They still hadn't started when Pershing Way was dedicated January 5, 1922 but it was in the works.

Pershing Way was the concrete road from Mexia to the clubhouse, which Col. Humphreys paid for and then donated to the city.

The initial coverage in the papers ran from January 5 through January 7, but a much more in-depth report appeared a month later, from the Pure Oil News on February 19.

By that time, the fire on Commerce and martial law had been declared, of which the piece makes mention.

I had combed through the available pieces on the Portal to Texas History, but unfortunately they do not own the 1921 and 1922 boom years. So for anyone interested, here is the news directly from Mexia of those exciting days when the commander of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in World War I, and the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies rank (the highest possible rank in the United States Army) it was a BIG DEAL.