In 1911 Slats Rodgers, an engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad, decided trains weren’t fast enough so he decided to build an airplane.

He read everything he could find on flying at the local library, including everything written by the Wright brothers. Finally, he was ready to start construction on his new airplane.

There weren’t too many automobiles in Cleburne at that time, and few people had even heard of an airplane. When word got out that Slats Rodgers was building an airplane, a machine that would supposedly fly, this attracted a lot of attention. Pretty soon crowds started gathering outside his shop trying to see what this new contraption looked like.

The crowds kept growing larger, and finally the city fathers had Slats Rodgers declared a public nuisance and ran him out of town. Slats then moved everything over to Keene and finished his airplane there. This was the first airplane built in Texas that actually flew. He named his plane “Old Soggy No. 1.”

There is a three-quarter scale model of “Old Soggy No. 1” hanging in the Hopps Museum and Welcome Center.

During a good part of the 20th century, broom making was a big cottage industry in Keene. Several small broom shops were located there, and the students at the college worked in them to help pay their expenses.

E. K. Birdwell had a large broom manufacturing business on U.S. 67. Several years ago he moved his plant to Crowley Road between Burleson and Crowley. He is still in business. The small broom making shops in Keene closed many years ago.

During the early years this work was all done by hand. Some of the primitive equipment used to hold the brooms while they were hand sewn is on display here.

Do you remember your grandmother’s chenille bedspread or chenille bathrobe? The making of chenille spreads and robes was a big business in Keene in the early to mid-20th century. This business employed many of the young ladies going to college here.

Some of the chenille bedspreads and bathrobes are on display in the museum

Another interesting business here was the NuCushion Products Company. Mr. R. C. “Doc” Hausinger ran this company for many years. Its specialty was stick horses, turning out several thousand a day. Two of the favorites were Broom Tail and Toni Pony.

NuCushion Products was located on the west side of College Drive about three blocks north of U.S. 67. In a small building at the back of the lot, plastic sheets were stamped and die-cut for the horse’s heads.

The main building near the road was divided into three sections. One was where the sticks were painted, another section where the workers stuffed the heads, and a section where workers attached the heads to the sticks.

At the back of this building was a warehouse where bales of cotton were stored. They used what was known as oil-mill cotton. It had a brown cast to it and short lint, not completely white.

I worked there in the summer of 1957. My job was to load a bale of cotton on a dolly and take it to the shed in front of the warehouse where a grinder was located. Here I would cut the bands on the bale of cotton and break it off in sections to go through the grinder. This would fluff up the cotton so it could be used to stuff the horse’s heads.

After the cotton was fluffed it went into a large cart. When the cart was filled I rolled it inside the plant. Workers had a large bins at their workstations that held the cotton they used to stuff the heads. My job was to make sure all the bins stayed full of cotton.

NuCushion Products shipped stick horses to every state in the union and several foreign countries. At one time Keene was known as the “Stick Horse Capital of the World.”

Many of the stick horses made by NuCushion Products Company are now on display at the Hopps Museum.

Another interesting item at the museum is the Dortch Pump Organ. This is a 120-year old Kimball reed organ that was donated to Southwestern Adventist University by Claude and Lucille Dortch in 1987.

The museum showcases a lot of the history of Keene. Besides the many items of interest on display, there are old photographs of some of the early buildings in Keene. If your interest is local history it will be worthwhile to spend some time browsing the Hopps Museum and Welcome Center.

You may also want to pick up a copy of the Texas Traveler’s book “History and Lore of Cleburne and Johnson County, Texas.” The books are available at the Cleburne Times-Review business office and make good stocking stuffers.



John Watson is a Cleburne

resident who can be reached at texastraveler@sbcglobal.net.