Pack rats give us second look

By Dick Tarpley

Sometimes pack rats run across rare treasures they're glad they didn't let spouses taunt them into throwing away.

In looking for something else the other day, I found a booklet prepared by City Manager Austin P. Hancock, called "The Municipal Abilene Story."

Hancock recounted the successes of his first six and a half years in office (April 1, 1950 to Oct. 1, 1956), a period of remarkable growth, with much more development to come shortly thereafter.

Hancock was not the first Abilene city manager, but he was the first to stay for a fairly long period of time.

Abilene had operated with a mayor-commissioner system until GIs came back from World War II, became interested in city government, and put through a conversion to a council-manager form.

We no longer had a commissioner for police, one for fire, etc. The manager, trained in city government, was hired by the council and ran the city under policies adopted by the council.

Hancock underscored one of the advantages of having a professional manager: "Prior to my employment as City Manager, neither bond funds nor interest and sinking funds reserves were invested in Federal, State or Municipal bonds. From June 27, 1950, to Sept. 30, 1956, $272,105 has been earned by the various funds.

"These earnings alone are approximately $200,000 more than the salary I have received during my tenure of office."

That means the city manager earned about $72,000 during those six and a half years, or an average of less than $12,000 a year.

That sounds pretty skimpy now for a person with that much responsibility. But for those times, it wasn't bad. When I came here in 1946, $50 a week ($2,600 a year) was a pretty good wage, and beginning jobs brought less. Salaries climbed fairly fast, but the 1956 booklet showed the chief of police and fire chief earning only $300 a month ($3,600 a year), and beginning policeman and firemen earned $195 monthly.

Comparing that with today's salaries, you can see inflation's impact in just 40 years.

Only one of Hancock's bosses is still living: Councilman Robert Tiffany, who later went to New York as a major wheel in one of the nation's largest insurance companies, and has now returned as a retiree to continue his role in civic, cultural and religious activities.

The mayor was C.E. Gatlin, a college professor and retired colonel. Councilmen, now deceased, were oilman A. Crutcher Scott and two young lawyers, Tom Webb and John Crutchfield. (The council increased to seven members in 1962 after citizens approved a new city charter.)

From World War II to 1950, Abilene's population almost doubled, exceeding 45,000. Many of its dirt streets were paved between 1950 and 1956 and city boundaries expanded by about 50 percent. The 1950s brought Dyess Air Force Base, huge home-building, many new schools, and another doubling of the population to more than 89,000 by 1960.

Even so, we were much smaller than we are today. Wylie was "out in the country." A new Abilene High School had just opened near the northwest city limits.

Hancock touted the new airport (west of the present site) and the Dec. 11, 1956, bond election to construct the present city library (across North 2nd from the then-city hall and the old library. These began an almost complete overhaul of major Abilene facilities.

In the next decade and a half, Abilene was to tear up downtown and Butternut streets, install storm sewers, lower curbs and build a second high school, a new city hall, new courthouse and a civic center (all of which later grew annexes), the coliseum, fair buildings, new zoo and the present city airport.

Pack rat material may not teach you much new. But just think how much more Hancock's booklet means in retrospect than it did the first time around.