This is the old First National Bank Building as it stands today. This is the 2nd street side and the bench A. C. Black describes was located somewhere along where the telephone pole is now.

This account appeared in a 2002 edition of the Mexia News

My name is A.C. Black and I grew up in Wortham in the 1920's and 30's. The big oil boom in the town had followed on the heels of the one in Mexia, and was approaching an end around 1926. The large influx of oil field workers and others began to depart rapidly.

Soon the town had settled back down to a thriving little farming community of about 2000 or so citizens. Business was very good. Farmers came flowing into town on Saturdays. Most came in wagons drawn by mules which they tethered in the alleys while families milled about on the streets talking and visiting with friends and merchants.

They usually ate a "nickle" hamburger or two, washing it down with a bottle of" Nehi" soda water, and perhaps eating a peanut patty. The children might go to the moving picture show to see western stars like Tom Mix, Buck Jones, or Tim McCoy, etc. Admission was only a dime. The man of the family might seek out the local "bootlegger" while the wife was not looking and purchase a bottle of "white Lighting", or good quality red corn whiskey made by a famous local family on the creek bottom.

In the late afternoon, the families would load their wagons down with groceries. Perhaps a 98 lb sack flour, a sack corn meal, coffee, sugar, salt and pepper, a big can coal oil, (kerosene with a small potato sack stuck in the spout to prevent spilling) large box matches, tobacco, snuff, and maybe a little hard candy, or "suckers" for the children. They would then head the mules out for home. (These were the only items that they didn't raise on the farm at home)

Most everyone had been enjoying prosperity, and life had been mostly quiet and peaceful during those few years. But suddenly everything changed!!!

The stock market crashed on my eighth birthday, Oct. 29, 1929 and the "GREAT DEPRESSION" began immediately. This was a terrible blow to the welfare of everyone!! Business almost came to a complete stand-still, and I recall hearing merchants saying many times the following years that the" town of Wortham was dying"

My Mother and Daddy were operating a small cafe, on north 2nd during those years and it was becoming pretty difficult to sell many of their nickel hamburgers, 20 cent plates Irish stew, or bowls chili. Several times I heard my Daddy say the town of Wortham was dead.

This seemed to be actually true around 1931 because there were 3 fully grown buzzards constantly circling above main street, and sometimes perching on the edges of the 2 story store buildings. They would perch there balefully staring down at the people below in the same manner as they would while patiently waiting for a wounded animal to die.

The explanation for the buzzards presence was a man named Wayne Riley who loved creatures of all sorts. He had a welding shop on the corner off the alley next to the old stone jail. Someone had robbed a buzzards nest  and sold them to him. Wayne raised the birds, made pets of them and when they were old enough to fly set them free. However he continued to feed them so they became tame and attached to him.

Of course these buzzards attracted attention. Some were amused and others were not. The first National Bank Building was on the northwest  corner of Main and 2nd. Along the second street side of the building was a very long bench on the sidewalk which was in the shade in the afternoon. Locals and some of town fathers often sat there in the cool of the evening discussing hard times, President Hoover, the latest gossip and just shooting the breeze. I was a young boy and often sat near them just to listen.

On a particular afternoon I remember, the three buzzards began to circle low above the main intersection a couple of times, and finally came to rest on the edge of the building directly across the street from us. Of course all the eyes were on the buzzards, and we sat there in fascination as the birds perched across from us. The birds continued to sit there, balefully watching us in the same ominous way as we would if they were waiting for a wounded prey to die. Some of the onlookers were amused, but a few definitely were not.

Some of the not so amused who felt the town's image were at stake along with Roy (Crook) Calame, the city constable confronted Wayne Riley and wanted him to get rid of those dang buzzards right now.

So after the delegation to Wayne's shop the buzzards were never seen again as Wayne loaded them in his truck and carried them a long way from Wortham before turning them loose.

Wortham did not die and some old-timers can still recall these timeless incidents.