Since I’ve been living on Lake Texoma I’ve been surprised at the lack of souvenirs. Tee-shirts, sweatshirts, ball caps, sun visors and beverage can koozies, yes. But genuine souvenirs, no.
Have I missed something around here?
Well, thanks to Ebay and a love for garage sales, flea markets and antique stores I have acquired a few Lake Texoma treasures I proudly display in my home and office. Besides the vintage postcards I’ll save for another post, another day, I have two prized pieces of pottery pictured below.
One is a lovely decorative plate manufactured by Vernon Kilns for the W.J. Baldwin Store in Madill, Oklahoma. That’s what is printed on the back of the plate, so I did a little research on the store and the pottery kiln, both of which are now defunct.
W.J. Baldwin and his wife Hazel owned and operated their department store in Madill, Oklahoma. They commissioned the commemorative plate some time before 1958.
That’s all I know for sure, because that was the year Vernon Kilns in Vernon, California went out of business. Wikipedia states, “Vernon Kilns produced transfer-print specialty ware which could be special ordered. Custom decal plates, as special order items, were produced for department stores, for promotional advertisement, for commemorative events, and for the tourist trade.”
Please post your comments and photos of the Baldwin’s store if you’re so inclined. It would be GREAT to have them as part of my Lake Texoma treasury.
My other piece of Lake Texoma pottery is a mug manufactured by Conrad Crafters in Wheeling, West Virginia. It even has gilt edging, which doesn’t show up in my photo.
Conrad is still in business today and an email to them with the picture of the mug attached received the following reply from David Knight: “We produced souvenir mugs of that type in the mid to late 60's. Cheap Chinese imports forced us out of that line around that time.”
A map is not really a souvenir, but I cannot help myself here, so I’m including a photo and brief description of a Lake Texoma map from the 1950s. It was put out by the M-KT Railroad which ceased operations in 1988, having operated in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri since it began in the 1870s.
The Katy Railroad, as it came to be known, is probably most famous these days for the publicity stunt staged in Crush, Texas on September 15, 1896. You’ll get a longer version of the incredible tale in a story published by Clay Swartz recently in Cowboys and Indians Magazine, but the gist of it is that the Katy Railroad staged a fake train wreck, a crash to attract attention. And the stunt worked. It’s reported that 50,000 people were present for the Crash at Crush that day, and three of them died as a result.
Got any Lake Texoma souvenirs of your own to share? If so, post below!