In 1933 Dad, H.F. "Dock" Charlton, sold out his dry goods business and put in Charlton Hatchery on the east edge of Hollis. He shipped and sold baby chicks all over Texas and Western Oklahoma. He later opened a grocery store on the north side of the 100 block of East Broadway and then a bakery which he operated in conjunction with the grocery store. "Dock" advertised "Good Bread-the Best that good materials can make-and it's a full 16-ounce loaf FOR A NICKLE". The grocery and bakery business was later moved to the south
side of the 100 block of East Broadway.
My Mother, "Hilly", worked all the time along side Dad. I was in college from 1936 to 1940. I worked in the business during the summer. My brother, James, "Little Dock", was the butcher for the grocery store. James also delivered groceries in a truck equipped with a public address system and was always available to the public in case of emergencies.
People will remember the loud speaker Dad had on the top of the store. He would advertise specials and play music during the day. If a child or animal was lost, he would put it on the speaker and they would soon be found. I remember Darrell Royal would come by and ask "Dock" to play "Yellow Rose of Texas" or "San Antonio Rose". Dad also announced football games and upcoming events.
Dad was quite a guy....never lost his Southern accent. He came from Tennessee to Oklahoma in 1909 selling Bibles to make a little money to live on. He ended up in Altus and went to work for Russell Department Store before he came to Hollis.
Dad went out of business around 1947 because of his health and farmed one of my grandfather�s farms. He had heart trouble and had to retire from farming. He died in 1950.
My Mother lived in the "pink house" across the street from the First Baptist Church. She was very active and loved to work in her flowers. Mother died in 1989.
Dad will be remembered for the articles he wrote in the Hollis News papers. He wrote them in the 30�s and 40�s.
One of the articles told about World War II. His son, James, was in the navy....also my husband Johnnie Millspaugh.
(Excerpts from Gary Reid�s article in the Hollis News on Sept. 20, 1979)
The Charlton News was a news letter written by "Dock" Charlton, early day Hollis business man. It was written periodically, primarily to advertise specials at the Charlton Grocery and Hatchery Store. The letter was produced on a mimeograph machine. In one news article he writes: "This is how it all happened: I came to Hollis on the 27th day of March just 30 years ago. I have seen every brick building built in Hollis as there wasn�t one here when I came. It was strictly a wooden shanty town. The Hollis Drug Store was under construction..."
Dock's newsletters had quite a following among local residents. Maybe these excerpts will bring back some good memories. However, Charlton referred early in his letters to difficult times.
"One year ago, hogs and chickens and eggs were so low in price most farmers lost courage, gave up and quit. There was very little poultry raised here. In fact, I have never seen as little marketable poultry in the country as there is now."
"Farmers are missing thousands of dollars in revenue because they didn�t have the courage to buy and carry on."
"It takes a lot of faith, and I admit, I lost faith, too. Well it doesn�t pay to ever give up and quit. The price of most every farm commodity is now turning to the profitable side of the ledger."
Taken from "The Charlton News"
Written by Dock Charlton
March 9, 1939
Well, folks, here we are again with a message to you of our Best Groceries and our Baby Chicks, and all of the finest Quality and Lowest Prices...yes, we say it and we mean it. WE WILL NEVER SELL ANYTHING BUT QUALITY PRODUCTS and WE WILL NEVER BE UNDERSOLD, and our slogan is "The Lowest Prices Under the Sun", and we expect to make it good.
Our Baby Chicks are far superior in Quality to any you can buy and I will tell you why: We have gotten famous in the county. They raise better poultry and they are not always and forever sending off to some unknown source trying to buy breeding stock. Poultry diseases are all most unheard of in the country all that every bothers any poultry raiser here is common colds, lice and worms. In my 25 years here raising poultry and observing flocks from every part of the country I have never seen a flock of hens that was suffering from any kind of disease outside of colds and chicken pox, and these two troubles are always caused by over crowding, poor housing and chickens roosting in a poorly ventilated house. Your hens cannot roost in a draft or colds will result. Hens cannot be over crowded. They will never make you any money if you have twice as many chickens on your farm as you have housing room for. So buy what you can keep well and they will pay you well.
One hundred hens is all you can keep in a 20 by 20 shed type house, if you expect to get eggs in winter, as you must keep them up in bad weather all through the winter and must have a good egg mash, or in other words they must have a balanced ration to lay in winter, as hens do not lay in winter unless forced to do so, as it�s not nature for them to do so. Just grain will not produce eggs in winter. There�s no use talking...IT WON�T DO IT...unless you have a good dry, warm weather and you have lots of green wheat pasture and skimmed milk to go with it THEN YOU CAN GET THE EGGS.
We want to sell you your chicks and we want you to make money. We would rather not sell you a chick, as bad as we want your business if you don't make money with them, so come and buy just what you can take care of, and don't buy too many.
Listen to this - If you would like to have a real good flock of hens year in and year out...that would feed themselves, buy your groceries, buy gas for your car and thousands of other things...I mean just like some of the farmers you know do...come in and I can tell you how to do it. I have done it myself and the reason I don�t have a big flock right now I have more to do than I can get done, and there is not a man in this town that I know that I would trust to be caretaker for a flock of hens. It takes experience to raise chickens; its more difficult to raise a thousand white leghorn hens from baby chicks to successful laying hens and make them pay than it is to make a success of any business in Hollis. ITS ONE BUSINESS THAT TAKES EXPERIENCE.
Lots of farmers have experience but no capital to build poultry houses. I think while the government is aiding farmers, the first money they should loan a farmer is money to build a good pig pen and a good chicken house, then buy him some pigs, four good dairy cows and a hundred good laying hens, and if he can find a half way decent farm to rent he can�t help from making a living, if he works hard and manages fairly well.
February 18, 1947
Dear Customer,
It's been a long time since I have written to you, but I am going to start the hatchery now pretty soon and I want to talk chickens to you.
We never get in too big a hurry, lots of hatcheries start up and hatch chicks thru January and February and sell them cheap just to create extra business but we never do it for this reason:
Chicks hatched before the fifteenth of March in this climate will not make winter layers. Why? Because they mature in July and August and lay for about six weeks, get poor, and go into a moult and lay no more till spring. Don�t take my word for it, ask any farmer that has had experience and see if I am not right. You just have to feed them for a lot of extra months and get no returns from your hens.
It's all right to get chicks early if you want early fryers, but I have never known any body to make much raising them as we have no market that is any good and you make so little from them that it doesn�t pay.
My brother is running over at Altus and if you want any chicks any time till I start you can come in and I will order them for you at any time. He has lots of them coming off and sales are very slow and we would be glad to have your order if you want some early chicks.
We are booking our fine Star Leghorns by the thousands now if you want them in March or April, and may book now... it costs you nothing to book them and when the time comes you can get them and if you wait till the time comes to get them it will be like it was last year, all sold out.
The chicken business all comes in three months and for that reason its almost impossible for all to get chicks at the same time, if you book now, maybe you couldn�t get them the week you want them, but could get them in just a few days of the time you need them.
We are booking nearly all Leghorns, Leghorns are really in demand, no wonder, eggs are a good price and if you want eggs, Leghorns are no doubt the best for eggs. We are getting twelve cents for our chicks, this is not out of line with other things and we will have to have this price for good pure bred chicks.
All the sexers have gone to war and we are fortunate in having a cripple to sex our chicks as he won�t have to be drafted, so you can buy pullets here and if you are raising a lot of leghorns, you won�t have to feed only fifty percent as many chicks to get your required pullets, then too, it won�t take but half the house room and building is high and in lots of cases materials are hard to get.
Come to see us. We are always paying the best price for your eggs and we have groceries to sell, not many, but we are happy that we have plenty that no one will go hungry.
Don�t forget this, our best chick starter, $3.15 per hundred, is a fine printed bag.
