Waples-Platter Grocery Company

E. B. Waples, the senior partner, came to Denison late in life by an unusual road. A biographical sketch says he went to sea at sixteen as a ship's cook and rose to captain for a year before leaving for the land. He lived in Howard County, Missouri, in 1836, St. Louis in 1838 and Livingston County from 1840 to 1877. He then moved to Sherman, ran a milling business for ten years and settled in Denison in the fall of 1887. The sketch calls his firm the largest wholesale house in Denison.

What the plaque says

Waples-Platter Grocery Company The Waples-Platter Grocery Company was established in 1872, before the City of Denison. Founded as Hanna, Owens & Co. In 1871, the company supplied Missouri-Kansas-Texas (mkt) railroad workers with provisions. The company moved to Main Street where a commercial district was quickly established. They set up a building in the 100 block of East Main Street in 1873 and became the first wholesale grocery company in the city. In 1885, E.B. Waples bought interest in the company and was named president of the firm. The same year, a large warehouse and headquarters was constructed by architect P. Lelardoux at 104 E. Main Street. It was a two-story building with cast iron pilasters in the façade, terra cotta lions head statues, keystones and segmented arch openings. The elegant building was meant to symbolize the company's prominence in Denison and survived for 128 years until it was demolished in 2013. In 1887, the company was renamed Waples-Platter & Company and their line of grocery products became known as the White Swan Line. The first branch house at Gainesville opened in 1890 and the Fort Worth branch opened in 1893. The Waples-Platter Canning Plant, known as Ranch Style, Inc., opened in 1913. Known as the greatest accomplishment of Waples-Platter, Ranch Style Beans was the company's most famous and lasting product. Once the headquarters of the company moved, the Denison operation remained until 1959. The original headquarters building in Denison was sold to Griffin Wholesale Grocer Company in 1941 when Waples-Platter moved to the annex building at 110-112 S. Houston until 1959. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 5.3 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 13 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Choctaw Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's history told from the Chahta side at Calera, with galleries from Nanih Waiya to the Trail of Tears and the reservation today, a living village and daily stickball.

More markers nearby

• Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad — steps away
• North-South Railway Connection — steps away
• Present Home of XXI Club — 0.3 mi
• Site of Saint Francis Xavier Academy — 0.3 mi