*** This is the third in an occasional series about West Columbia’s mayors. ***
By Susan Avera Holt
Columbia Historical Museum
William H. “Boss” Pierce was West Columbia’s fourth mayor and succeeded Dr. Greenwood in leading the city during wartime. Improving roads and combating sanitation woes, tuberculosis, polio and rats topped many committee agendas.
According to The Alvin Sun, 21 new cases of tuberculosis were found in the county in March 1944. Of those, one was reported from West Columbia.
The March 16, 1944, The Freeport Facts reported that fire destroyed Wright Chevrolet Co. and Wright Ladies Dress Shop. The Wright Steak Shop was damaged also.
“The fire started at 2:15 p.m. in the welder’s shop of the Chevrolet company when a welder’s torch ignited gasoline. There was an explosion and the flames spread to several barrels of paint thinner and other inflammable liquids in the shop.
“Workers escaped through the windows, and no injuries were reported.”
The business was ready to reopen a month later.
West Columbia took an active part in the Brazoria County Development Association. The BCDA focused on 14 key points in 1944: membership and finance, post-war job survey, highways and lateral roads, flood control, county airport, advertising and research, industry and port, pubic works projects, agriculture, public relations, education and recreation, county planning, drainage and information and service. Mayor W.H. Pierce and A.G. Kotzebue represented West Columbia.
In June 1945, the BCDA was informed by the Federal Housing Administration, Houston, that several cities were approved for housing units. West Columbia was allocated 16. The association “conducted a survey and filed a detailed report with the Housing Agency, showing the need of additional residential construction,” according to The Freeport Facts. West Columbia’s survey showed that the city needed 100 housing units. Because of the war effort, building materials were in short supply, and, if someone wanted to build, an application was submitted to the FHA for permission, and within limitations. (The official end of WWII was Sept. 2, 1945.)
Polio was back in the news in August 1945, as mayors and city managers gathered in Angleton at the old courthouse to discuss sanitation and the fight against rats and polio.
The Freeport Facts story read, “They got together on leasing the tools from El Campo to fortify buildings against the rats and acted together in leasing the old brick Wolf building in East Columbia as a central work shop for the towns in the county where the pools leased from El Campo could be used in preparing equipment in the rat eradication campaign.
“The East Columbia building has been retained for rental of $5.00 per month.”
As a side note, Brig. Gen. Frank Camm, Acting CG 78th Inf. Div., congratulated Lt. Val D. Lincecum, Jr. of West Columbia, on receiving the Bronze Star. The presentation was made in Felsberg, Germany.
In October 1945, The Freeport Facts reported that a proposed road from Lake Jackson to Brazoria would connect at the $260,000 bridge over the Brazos River at Brazoria completed in April 1940. At the time, there were three bridges over the Brazos in Brazoria County, one at Highway 35 in Freeport, this one in Brazoria and the other at West Columbia at the Angleton road. “The West Columbia bridge was built in 1911, has been repaired several times.”
An airport feeder field was in the works for West Columbia in January 1946. A county airport, and three feeder fields, costing $175,000, would be paid for with a bond issue. The main field would be built about 4.5 miles south of Angleton and the three feeders would be near Velasco Heights, West Columbia and Alvin.
Also in January 1946, the BCDA met and T.M. Smith was appointed chair of the Service to Existing Industries subcommittee. One of the projects to be studied by Smith’s subcommittee was a plywood or wood products manufacturing establishment to be located in West Columbia.
Mayor Pierce is buried in the Columbia Historical Cemetery in West Columbia. He died at the age of 93 and is buried next to his wife Lutie Wellborn.