From Bombs to Boosters: McGregor's Engineering Legacy RoadyGoat

The area just west of McGregor is one of the most important rocket engine test sites on the planet. This legacy of engineering began when the WWII Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was converted to test rocket technology after the war. The site's remote location and existing concrete bunkers made it ideal. Here, engineers from Rocketdyne ran the grounds as a solid propulsion plant, turning out solid rocket motors, gas generators, igniters, and JATO units, including the small but vital solid motors that powered air-launched missiles like the Sparrow, the Shrike, and the Phoenix, more than two hundred fifty thousand of them by the late nineteen sixties. When the race to the moon arrived, McGregor played its own part in the Saturn V program, not by test-firing the giant F-1 engines, each one roaring with about a million and a half pounds of thrust far out at Edwards Air Force Base in California, but by building the small solid ullage motors and gas generators that helped the towering rocket separate its stages and settle its fuel in flight. Today, SpaceX continues this tradition of boundary-pushing engineering. They built specialized test stands to fire and refine their Merlin engines, which power the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, and the advanced, methane-fueled Raptor engines for Starship. Every test, whether it lasts for a few seconds or several minutes, provides critical data on performance, thrust, and reliability, making this site a real-world laboratory for the future of space transportation.

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The Moon Race Ran Through McGregor RoadyGoat

You may be in Central Texas, but you're surprisingly close to the history of the Apollo moon landings. After WWII, the old bomb factory here was repurposed for something even more powerful: rockets. Phillips Petroleum ran a rocket-fuel operation on the site through the 1950s, and in 1959 Rocketdyne took over the testing and engineering plant. What came out of McGregor wasn't the giant first-stage engines — the firing bays here were built for small motors, up to five thousand pounds of thrust. What came out of here was everything else. By the late 1960s this plant had produced more than a quarter of a million rocket motors and thousands of gas generators and igniters, the small hardware that makes big engines light and keeps them running. Among them were ullage motors, the little solids that settle the fuel in a stage before the main engine fires. No ullage motor, no burn. So when you see footage of an Apollo mission on its way to the moon, remember that some of the pieces that got it there were fired first in a McGregor, Texas pasture.

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The Star-and-Cross Railroad Town RoadyGoat

Take a look at the streets in downtown McGregor. Notice anything unusual? Main Street and several others run at a sharp diagonal, cutting across a more traditional north-south grid. That isn't a planning mistake; it's the town's birth certificate written on the landscape. McGregor was established in 1882 precisely where the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway crossed the Texas and St. Louis Railway, the line later known as the Cotton Belt. The town plan was laid around that crossing, with the main street following the angle of the rails, so the most valuable commercial lots faced the railroad that was the town's lifeblood. On September 7th of that year, a state land commissioner sold the first lots at auction from the back of a railroad flatcar. So as you drive through, you're seeing a physical echo of the two iron horses whose meeting, right here on the prairie, created a town from scratch.

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Kane, John Riley

1943

World War II Medal of Honor recipient John Riley "Killer" Kane was born on January 5, 1907, in McGregor, Texas, the son of John Franklin Kane, a Baptist minister. As a youth Kane lived in Texas, Louisiana, and Missouri as his father traveled to different church assignments. Kane graduated from high school in DeSoto, Missouri. With a brash and outspoken personality, he expressed no interest in following in his father's footsteps. In 1924 Kane enrolled at Baylor University with intent on becoming a medical doctor majoring in zoology and German. At Baylor he played on both the football and basketball teams, and in 1926 he took part in a halftime fight at a Baylor-Texas A&M football game in which an Aggie player was fatally injured. As a member of the Baylor basketball team on January 22, 1927, Kane was a passenger on the school's charter bus that was rammed in the side at a railroad crossing in Round Rock on a road trip to Austin. Although Kane was not injured, ten members of the group of twenty-two players, coaches, and fans were killed in the Baylor Bus Crash of 1927 . After graduating with his A.B. degree from Baylor in 1928, Kane attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis for two years. He left medical school after determining, "I couldn't stand all that medical smell, chloroform and ether and all. It actually made me sick." After leaving medical school, Kane went to Eagle Springs, Texas, where he worked on his grandfather's farm for a year and decided to become a pilot. At first, he tried to join the Marine Corps but was told by a recruiter: "Listen, Buddy, you don't want to learn to fly. It ain't no different from driving a truck." In 1932 he joined the United States Army Air Corps at San Antonio and attended flight school at Kelly and Randolph Field , earned his wings, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officer's Reserve Corps. In 1933 he served in a variety of positions at Rockwell Field and March Field in California, and at Barksdale Field in Shreveport, Louisiana, until being discharged from active duty. For a time, Kane found employment selling houses and digging ditches for an oil company. He was recalled to active duty and spent several years at Barksdale training pilots for the growing Army Air Corps. In February 1942 Captain Kane was transferred to Lackland Air Force Base as a squadron commander. In July 1942 he was assigned to the Middle East Theater of Operations as a squadron commander of the Ninety-eighth Bombardment Group and attained the rank of major that year. He was promoted to colonel and became commander of the Ninety-eighth in 1943. Colonel Kane accumulated a total of 250 combat hours in forty-three combat missions and received a Silver Star for his performance in outmaneuvering a Messerschmitt 110 during his time in the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater of Operations. John Kane possessed an aggressive personality and a tough domineering manner that inspired both respect and hatred from those that had to deal with him. He could be outspoken and direct in his views, even with his superiors. With members of his own crew, he often was blunt in an effort to maintain a distance; "I was there to try to keep them alive, not to mother them." Kane was given the nickname "Killer" by fellow pilots who got the name from the character named "Killer Kane" in the Buck Rogers comic strip. The nickname "Killer" fitted Kane's unique personality and it stuck. With Kane as their commander, the Ninety-eighth (nicknamed the "Pyramiders") played a key role in Operation Tidal Wave on August 1, 1943. This operation constituted one of the most daring bombing raids by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in World War II. This mission involved some 179 B-24 Liberators, divided into five groups, in a low level bombing attack on the Nazi-held oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania, which was believed to be providing Nazi Germany with 60 percent of their crude oil. Starting from airfields around

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McGregor Mirror

1904

In 1904, the McGregor Mirror was founded by T.E. Streight (1870-1910). A young type setter, Charles “Chas” B. Hall (1887-1964), went to work at the Mirror when it opened. Later, he and his wife, Lillian “Lillie” (Spross) Hall (1890-1955), purchased it in 1918. Their daughter Bonnie Hall) Mooney (1925-1998) and husband Thomas E. Mooney (1924-1994) published the Mirror from 1956 to 1992. Their children continue publishing the award-winning newspaper marking three generations in the same building where it was established in 1904. The building houses one of the earliest Model 14 Linotypes in Texas, which was purchased at the State Fair in 1925 and was used until the 1990s. for generations, the Mirror has documented and preserved important, personal community events through the years.

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Deyerle-Fall House

1892

William W. Deyerle (1853-1920), banker, rancher, and miller, came to central Texas from Virginia. With his wife Willie (Christie), he hired master stonemason Henry Wissman to build this house. Wissman cut and hauled the limestone himself, placing each stone according to his own plan. Striking architectural features of the house include a hipped roof, arched windows, a central porch with turned columns, and a bracketed cornice. The home was completed in 1892. William Deyerle died in 1920, and after Willie Deyerle and her new husband Camden Sanborn were killed in 1926, the house was inherited by her sister, Mary Fall. The home remained in the Fall family until 1975. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998

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Folsom, Alfred Iverson

1908

Alfred I. Folsom, pioneer urologist, son of Dr. Alfred Iverson and Mary Frances (Powell) Folsom, was born on May 9, 1883, in McGregor, Texas. After his preliminary education in McGregor and Waxahachie, he obtained a bachelor of arts degree from Southwestern University in Georgetown, followed by a degree in medicine from Southwestern Medical College (now the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas) in 1908. The first two years after medical school, he practiced general medicine in Alba, Texas. Subsequently, he acquired specialty training at the Mayo Clinic in New York in what was then the new surgical specialty of urology under the guidance of the eminent surgeon William F. Braasch. In 1913 Folsom began a practice in urology that became busy enough to require the services of numerous assistants. After training with Dr. Folsom, many of these assistants became distinguished urologists throughout the Southwest. Folsom held numerous clinical appointments, including professor of urology at Baylor University College of Medicine in Dallas. He was also chief of the Department of Urology at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where he was on the staff for thirty years. In 1916 Folsom was listed in the membership of the Texas Surgical Society as the state's only urologist. He founded the Dallas Southern Clinical Society in 1919 and is credited with starting the first urology training program in Texas, at Southwestern Medical College. He was also one of the nine organizers of the American Board of Urology, which oversees the board certification of all urologists in the United States. As a result of his dynamic and exciting lectures, Folsom was frequently sought as a guest speaker. His role was pivotal in altering urology from the undeveloped genitourinary surgery of the early twentieth century into an independent surgical specialty. On October 3, 1946, after becoming the only Texan to hold the office of president of the American Urological Association, Folsom was killed in an automobile accident outside Dallas. He was survived by his wife, Erma, and three children. Folsom was a Methodist.

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Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant

1942

In February 1942 the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps acquired 18,000 acres of land just southwest of McGregor, Texas, southwest of Waco and designated the tract as a site to manufacture munitions in support of the war effort. The National Gypsum Company was contracted to build, operate, and staff the plant. Officials broke ground for the facility, which was named after the Texas state flower, on April 18, 1942, and in October 1942 bombs began coming off the first production line. One of four ordnance facilities set up by the government, the Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was the first to produce bombs used on the battlefield. Different production lines became active throughout 1942. Ultimately the facility produced three kinds of bombs-general purpose, semi-armor piercing, and fragmentation bombs-as well as other ordnance products and ammonium nitrate. Just as the United States ramped up production for World War II , the draft pulled millions of men into the armed forces and left a gap in the industrial workforce. Many women soon entered manufacturing jobs previously held almost exclusively by men. The Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant recruitment advertisements called for men and women of all races. However, African American men and women were compelled to use segregated facilities rather than working alongside White women or men. The result of such recruiting efforts was a workforce that reached a maximum size of approximately 5,000 at the height of the war. This influx of workers more than tripled the population of McGregor from 2,000 to 6,000 people and led to severe housing shortages in Waco and the surrounding area. The Bluebonnet plant had its own housing, hospital, newspaper, stores, and transit system as well as police and fire departments for its workers. Women fulfilled a range of jobs throughout the plant, including operating forklifts and other heavy machinery to prepare the bombs for shipment. Though sometimes facing the challenges of harassment and stereotyping, women workers played an integral role in the production effort, and integrated work places such as Bluebonnet ultimately helped change social attitudes and led male managers and coworkers to appreciate women's skills and capabilities. The women working at Bluebonnet and other industrial jobs proved themselves able to adapt to these physically demanding and dangerous jobs. Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was awarded the Army-Navy "E" Award for "outstanding performance in war production" on October 27, 1944. Near the end of the war much of the site was leased out for farming and ranching even as the ordnance plant itself remained a functional military installation. The surrender of Germany and Japan signaled the end of World War II and spurred rapid demobilization within the U.S. armed forces and wartime economy. When the plant ceased production on August 14, 1945, more than four million bombs had been produced along with almost nine million other ordnance items. Soon after the war ended the ordnance plant was closed. In April 1946 the facility was transferred from the War Department to the War Assets Administration. A majority of the acreage went to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) for Bluebonnet Farm, an experimental agricultural research center. Some sections of the facility were converted to peacetime production of stoves and furniture. In 1952 the U.S. Air Force acquired more than 11,000 acres of the site and contracted with Phillips Petroleum Company for rocket fuel research and manufacturing. Aerospace research developed into a long-term use of the site, and various firms leased land on the site for rocketry testing and fuel production for decades after the ordnance assembly lines stopped rolling. The U.S. Air Force transferred ownership to the U.S. Navy in 1964. The site was designated the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in 1973, but operations were turned over to Hercules, Inc., in 1978, and production continued until the p

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The Grange in Texas

1873

The Grange, also known as the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, was a nonpartisan national organization comprised of farmers to establish economic independence, socialization and greater educational opportunities for families. They garnered political attention and lobbied for the advancement and unity of America's agricultural sector. The first Texas Grange organized at Salado in 1873 under R.A. Baird, a deputy from the national Grange. The Texas State Grange had its headquarters in Dallas, and by 1876 counted membership of 40,000 men, women and children belonging to 1,275 lodges in Texas and Indian Territory (later Oklahoma).
 Grange members were influential in the state's Constitutional Convention of 1875, where their positions on taxing, railroad regulation and homestead protection were approved. The Grange's lasting legacy was their dedication to improving the public education system. They advocated for the establishment of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (later Texas A&M University), the state's first public institution of higher learning. Grange master Archibald J. Rose was chairman of the Texas A&M board of regents from 1888-96. The development of agricultural cooperatives, a member insurance association and publication of Texas Farmer newspaper were also important Grange activities.
 In 1889, the Texas State Grange Fair Association was successful in the creation of a 400-acre experimental farm and exhibition hall in McGregor. Developed along the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway tracks near Harris Creek, the grounds became the site of annual state fairs, encampments and other gatherings for several years. The Grange continues today but with decreased membership and influence. (2019)

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Mcgregor, Texas

Music in Mcgregor

Songs About Mcgregor

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Mcgregor

History of Mcgregor

From Bombs to Boosters: McGregor's Engineering Legacy RoadyGoat

The Moon Race Ran Through McGregor RoadyGoat

The Star-and-Cross Railroad Town RoadyGoat

Kane, John Riley

McGregor Mirror

Deyerle-Fall House

Folsom, Alfred Iverson

Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant

The Grange in Texas

Things to Do in Mcgregor

Everything Near Mcgregor