In 1994 a burgeoning East Texas cotton town and railroad stop began drilling for water for its growing populace and discovered oil instead. Overnight, Corsicana became Texas’ first boomtown.
During that time a German newcomer moved into town. August Weidmann, a mas- ter baker in Wiesbaden, had crossed the Atlantic with a recipe for fruitcake in his pocket. His dream was to introduce America to the flavorful cakes he’d loved in Europe. Not long after he arrived in Corsicana, he met Tom McElwee, a flamboyant cotton buyer and promoter who developed ideas for marketing Weidmann’s fragrant, fruit-filled cakes.
Together they opened the Collin Street Bakery in 1896.
Ten years later, their venture had already outgrown its space.
Weidmann and McElwee relocated the bakery to the first floor of a larger building. Above the bak- ery on the second floor, McElwee opened the Elite Hotel, eight rooms of “lux- ury” accommodations for visiting celebrities. In time, the hotel’s roster read like a who’s who of early 20th-century Americana. Will Rogers stayed there, as did Diamond Jim Brady, Gentleman Jim Corbett and Terrible Tempered John McGraw. The opera singer Enrico Caruso also was a guest at the Elite.
In their rooms above the bakery, hotel guests woke each morning to the aroma of Weidmann’s cakes and breads bak- ing below and inevitably wandered downstairs and into the shop. One day, John Ringling and the entire troupe of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ordered Weidmann’s Deluxe Fruitcakes to be shipped to circus friends around the world.
Collin Street Bakery’s mail-order business was born.
FRUIT-FILLED GOODNESS Collin Street Bakery set up shop in 1896 with Gus Weidmann’s fruitcake as a staple.
The iconic tins of Deluxe Fruitcakes were soon being sent across the globe to fans — except for a few years. “During World War II, when tin was rationed, we had to put our fruitcakes in cardboard boxes,” explains Hayden Crawford, the company’s director of public relations.
While the Elite Hotel closed long ago, the cur- rent bakery stands only four blocks away from its earlier home and still attracts a long list of blue-chip fans. “As for Texans on our mail order list,” Crawford says, “we have the governor, we had the Bushes when they were in the White House, Nolan Ryan, Lyle Lovett and a whole lot more.”
Crawford notes that he’s been with the company for “only” a decade, but his dad was with the bakery for 52 years and could probably name additional noteworthy customers. He seems to recall that the Queen of England was a sometime customer depending upon what was being baked at the palace, but that Princess Stephanie of Monaco was a regular recipient of a tin from Texas.
Innovations at the company in recent years include new varieties of cakes, such as apricot pecan and pineapple pecan, and some new cities have joined Corsicana in selling the cakes through Collin Street Bakery stores, including Greenville, Waco and Lindale.
But one tradition continues: you can still tour the bakery in historic Corsicana.
