Slaton Bakery
Slaton, Lubbock County, Texas
Marker Inscription
SLATON BAKERY IN 1923, BLUE RIBBON BAKERY AND CITY BAKERY, EACH OF WHICH HAD OPENED IN 1921, CONSOLIDATED. BY 1925, THIS ESTABLISHMENT WAS KNOWN AS SLATON BAKING COMPANY. IN 1943, THE WILSON FAMILY PURCHASED THE BUSINESS. THE WILSONS OVERCAME RATIONING DURING WORLD WAR II TO CONTINUE A THRIVING BUSINESS. SLATON BAKERY INTRODUCED SLICED HAMBURGER AND HOT DOG BUNS TO THE AREA, AND DISTRIBUTED MRS. BAIRD’S PRODUCTS WHILE CONTINUING TO PRODUCE PASTRIES MADE ON SITE. THE BAKERY LATER ADDED HOMEMADE FLOUR TORTILLAS TO THEIR MENU. IN 1982, THE BUSINESS MOVED TO ITS PRESENT LOCATION. TODAY, SLATON BAKERY IS A COMMUNITY INSTITUTION, AND CONTINUES AS ONE OF THE OLDEST STILL-OPERATING BAKERIES IN THE STATE OF TEXAS. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When two young bakeries in the West Texas railroad town of Slaton merged in 1923, they set in motion one of the state's most enduring family businesses, taken over by the Wilson family in 1943. Through wartime rationing the bakery kept its ovens going, introduced the area to sliced hamburger and hot dog buns, and later added homemade flour tortillas to reflect its community. Still operating today, it ranks among the oldest continuously running bakeries in Texas.
Why it matters
Everyday businesses like a corner bakery are the connective tissue of small-town America, feeding a community across generations and outlasting the booms and busts around them.
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Related people
- · Wilson family
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Slaton
Slaton, TX
Slaton owes its very existence to the Santa Fe Railroad. When the Pecos and Northern Texas branch reached the South Plains in 1911, banker O. L. Slaton — who had helped secure the right-of-way — lent his name to the brand-new townsite, which opened for business only a month after its first lots sold. As a railroad division point complete with a Harvey House, roundhouse, and machine shops, Slaton boomed almost overnight into a farming and ranching hub.
Rockwell Lumber Company Office Building
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In 1911 Rockwell Brothers and Co. bought land from the Pecos and Northern (Santa Fe) Railway to open a lumberyard serving the brand-new railroad town of Slaton. This two-story vernacular building housed the company office, with living quarters above for the manager and his family — Robert W. Parker being the first to occupy it. It remained the main office until Rockwell closed its Slaton operation in 1941.
Slaton Harvey House
Slaton, TX
Slaton was born of the railroad: the Santa Fe bought this ranchland in 1911 for a division point and, a year later, built both a depot and a Harvey House. Part of the chain founded by Scottish immigrant Fred Harvey, the Slaton house served elegant meals to travelers around a horseshoe counter, staffed by the famed 'Harvey Girls' who roomed upstairs. A commercial and social hub for thirty years, it briefly reopened to feed troops during World War II before the building lived on as a depot into the 1980s, later rescued by local preservationists.
Wilson Mercantile Company
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William Green founded the Wilson Mercantile in 1910 on West Texas school lands he and his associates had bought a few years earlier, then drew the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway to the spot and watched a town grow around his store. He brought in farmers and tenants, many from his home county, and ran vast ranch holdings nearby. His original frame store gave way to this 1917 building, later restored by his daughter-in-law into a repository of the pioneering era.