Numerous individuals who played roles in establishing the City of Livingston from the late 1800s to the early 1900s were discussed by Local Historian Gary Davis when he recently provided a program for the Rotary Club of Livingston.
Davis shared stories about the town’s early merchants, jewelers, mayors, baseball team, traveling ranch show, orchestra, county officials and judges.
He said one of his favorites was a man named Ben M. Lewis (1872-1938) who went around town taking pictures and then bound them in volumes. Davis said that Lewis called himself “Lewis the Jeweler” and that he owned the Emerald Ice Cream Parlor.
Davis told of Sidney Scarbrough (1873-1910) who put in the town’s first water system in 1914. He was the son of Mattie Scarbrough.
Junius Poitenent (1837-1919) was a riverboat captain of the “Early Bird,” a 126-foot-long by 26-foot-wide boat that shipped cotton, supplies and passengers. Poitenent eventually had 1,000 acres across the state that he earned by cleaning the Trinity River one mile at a time.
Davis spoke of J.W. Cochran (1859-1934) who owned a feed store that burned in the 1902 fire that was set the night before a liquor election. He said Cochran began rebuilding his store in 1903 and completed it in 1904.
He told of his grandfather H.B. Davis (1871-1950), a local merchant who bought out the S.P. Mistrot Company. He said that three generations of Davises ran the store for 90 years.
Davis also talked about Ernest Reuter Sr. (1891-1977) who was in a western circus called the Miller Brothers Wild West Show. His father was a master plumber from Massachusetts who came to Livingston, Texas by mistake when he was supposed to be in Livingston, Missouri.
He told of Cade Bethea and his brother Lamar, whose father sent them to the University of Texas for law school and they started playing football.
He showed a collection of historic photographs, comparing them to modern recreations, illustrating how some of the town’s original buildings still stand.
Davis said his grandfather’s narrative initially inspired his study of history, which only grew after he bought his office building on Jackson Avenue that was built in 1904 by Joseph Holshausen (1849-1915), who served as the county judge and also as a member of the state legislature.
