As a four-year-old when World War II began in 1941, my understanding of the enormity of it all escaped me. I was busy perusing comic books at the time, intrigued by Superman jumping tall buildings in a single bound.
It was his “bounding,” I’m thinking, that caused my lingering gazes at real skyscrapers a few years later during my first visits to Waco and Fort Worth.
During my pre-school years, our lone “skyscraper” in Brownwood was the tallest building I had ever seen. With 12 stories and 216 rooms, Hotel Brownwood seemed to scrape the sky on days when clouds hung low. It was the tallest structure between Austin and Abilene, Fort Worth and San Angelo and Wichita Falls and San Antonio. It was viable for three-plus decades, despite opening in 1930, when the Great Depression began its stranglehold on the USA. Long languishing, it is a shell of its former self….
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Visible from most highways leading into Brownwood, the old red brick building still looms skyward, but when visitors are in proximity of the structure, gaping holes where windows once were in place invite mind games. With windows removed as safety precautions, it looks like it’s awaiting dentures.
In the early days, the place dazzled. With nightly rates of $3-$4, it had a bustling restaurant, a roof garden ballroom for diners and dancers, an attendant-operated elevator and both barber and beauty shops.
It had bellmen who carried luggage to patrons’ rooms, working largely for tips. Such remuneration…
