Sisters Elnora and Lula Williams married Jones brothers Emory and Jinks, respectively, and operated the Jones Bros. Cafe. Left to right in this 1950s photo are Elnora Jones, Lula Jones and their sister-in-law Annie Jones (wife of June).
When they married in 1875, Bob and Almeady Chisum Jones had a clear vision of what they wanted in life: an education for their children, a good living and friendships. They succeeded on all counts. The dramatic twist was that both Bob and Almeady had been born into slavery.
Their story, while not typical, illustrates that Black history is not a singular story of formerly enslaved people remaining downtrodden. Their accomplishments in education, business and community continue to resonate in Southlake today.
SETTLING IN WHAT IS NOW SOUTHLAKE
Just before the Civil War, Bob (1850-1936) was brought by his white father and enslaved mother to the Medlin settlement, just north of what became Roanoke. In 1858, Almeady (1857-1949), her enslaved mother and two siblings were left with cattle baron John Simpson Chisum as collateral for cattle being trailed west. Almeady grew up on the Chisum ranch near Bolivar (Denton County), and her mother told her Chisum was her father. Back then, Texas was the Wild West. After the Civil War, to earn money for land and livestock, enterprising Bob joined cattle drives. Almeady had moved to Bonham, Texas, in 1871 with her mother and sister and was an accomplished seamstress.
After Bob and Almeady married, they lived in a log cabin in the Eastern Cross Timbers, in what’s now the Bob Jones Nature Center. As their family grew, they built onto their house, which burned in 1948.
Texas was a dangerous place for Black and mixed-race people. Bob and Almeady relied on resources and connections generally not available to others. Each grew up close to white people who taught them how to navigate the white world. Friendships with the Chisums, Medlins, Daggetts and other important North Texans no doubt helped protect them. And their home in the Eastern Cross Timbers, for a long time a tangle of trees and briars, was remote.
Bob was about 6 feet tall and a sharp dresser. He was a smart businessman who earned people’s trust. His handshake was his word. Circa 1890
THE VALUE OF EDUCATION
Like other formerly enslaved people, Bob and Almeady knew that education made life better. They were determined that each of their 10 children would finish the eighth grade. Because “colored” schools were scarce, they made sacrifices to educate their children. Some of the older children attended the Frederick Douglass School in Denton’s Quakertown, although living away from home was disruptive to the family’s ranching operation. Other times, teachers were hired and school was held at Walnut Grove Church (by 1902 renamed Mt. Carmel) or in a one-room building outside the family’s kitchen.
Neither Bob nor Almeady attended school, but along the way, they learned to read, write and “figure.”
In 1920, to benefit his grandchildren and other Black children in the area, Bob donated an acre to the county (which had created districts for white and “colored” schools) and built Walnut Grove in the Jones community. Typical of country schools, it had a pot-bellied stove and one teacher for all eight grades. Grandson Bobby — later a veterinarian and the Tarrant County epidemiologist — remembered the “bonus” education he received there: as he waited his turn to recite, he would listen to the older students.
In 1951, Walnut Grove closed because its students (fewer than 10) were heading to junior and senior high. Because of racial segregation, Black and mixed-race children had to go to Fort Worth or another city to continue their education. The Jones family chose I.M. Terrell in Fort Worth. The trip was an hour or more each way on Highway 121 (now Highway 26/Belknap Street) or on Highway 377. Granddaughter Betty sometimes rode the Trailways bus home via Roanoke, which dropped her off in the late afternoon at Noah’s Store (today, Babe’s Chicken Dinner House). Later, Northwest ISD bought a windowless panel truck with bench seats to drive Black students to I.M. Terrell.
Jones descendants attended Howard University, Tuskegee, Kansas State, Juilliard, Texas Southern, Notre Dame, the Sorbonne and other schools. Many became educators; others became business owners or musicians or worked in animal science professions. One grandson taught in Liberia.
In 2012, 61 years after Walnut Grove closed, Carroll ISD named its newest elementary Walnut Grove. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Jones' great-great-granddaughter and longtime teacher Linda Grigsby Walczyk, in referencing segregation, said, “I am thrilled to be standing here in this gorgeous school, Walnut Grove, which represents a full circle moment in history, a moment which runs directly through me! It is a redemptive moment in public education.”
THE VALUE OF BUSINESS
Bob learned about livestock from his father. At age 18, with money earned on twice-yearly trail drives, Bob set out to find a place of his own. He began buying land in the Eastern Cross Timbers, 5 miles east of Roanoke (established in 1881). Water came from Denton Creek.
In 1974, the ranch received a Texas Family Land Heritage award. According to a newspaper article, “The land must have been in continuous agricultural production at the hands of one family for a century or more. Jones established the farm in 1868, after originally purchasing 49 acres of rich bottomland.”
As Bob’s ranching operation grew, tenant farmers and hired hands helped to grow grain and clear trees and brush. Bob loaned his tenant farmers money, working with them to help them succeed. Like other ranchers, Bob paid taxes, borrowed from banks and repaid loans, received leases for mineral rights and did business with bankers, merchants, cattlemen and lawyers.
Bob became one of the area’s largest landowners, eventually owning 1,000-2,000 acres “free and clear” on the Tarrant-Denton county line.
Bob’s legacy as a successful and reputable businessman helped the next generation, sons Jinks and Emory, build their own business after the Army Corps of Engineers acquired much of their land through eminent domain for Lake Grapevine. Bob couldn’t have known that by the early 1950s, much of his land would be under Lake Grapevine.
In 1948, at the southeast corner of Highway 114 and White’s Chapel Road, eight years before Southlake was founded, they built an auction barn and, in 1949, a cafe. Their wives, Lula and Elnora, who were sisters, operated the small Jones Bros. Cafe, which some historians believe was the first integrated cafe in Texas. When 114 was widened, the auction barn and cafe were rebuilt under one roof.
Farmers, horse enthusiasts, part-time farmers who were also airline pilots and others came from miles around for the cattle auctions Tuesday mornings at 10 and horse auctions Wednesday evenings at 7. And for the hamburgers, chili (no beans!) and mouth-watering peach and apricot fried pies.
Lula and Elnora didn’t open an integrated cafe, it just turned out that way.
“Black truck drivers [hauling rock to Lake Grapevine] would... come in the back door and ask if they could have a soda or a sandwich,” Lula’s daughter Betty told a newspaper columnist. “My mother told them, ‘I’ll serve you if you come in the front door.’ They’d say they didn’t want to get her into any trouble. My mother would say, ‘This is a family business. I’ll serve who I want.’ The Black truckers would walk in, and they couldn’t believe it. They’d sit there [at the counter] and look all around. They didn’t know if they were going to be snatched out and lynched. It was like they were on another planet.”
By 1975, the Joneses had leased out the auction barn and cafe. Today, the site has disappeared under another expansion of 114. A popular flea market, started by Lula and Elnora as a place for people to sell “treasures,” lasted into the 2000s.
In 2021, the city unveiled the Bob and Almeady Chisum Jones sculpture in Bob Jones Park. Sculptor Seth Vandable visits with Jones' grandson William Larue Jones, a retired music professor.
THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY
Bob and Almeady worked hard, but they had fun too. By 1900, they were hosting an “end of harvest” picnic for workers and their families featuring barbecue, music and dancing. It was the beginning of a tradition that contributed to the area’s racial harmony and community spirit.
“The Roanoke, Argyle, Grapevine, Southlake area was never really highly segregated,” said grandson Bobby. “There was not really the overt racism around here that there was in some other areas.”
Bob died on Christmas Day 1936. According to a local newspaper, a crowd of 500 jammed Roanoke’s First Baptist for the funeral. Blacks sat on one side of the church, whites on the other.
In 1948, the community picnic Bob had started was moved to a field next to his sons’ auction barn. There was no admission charge for the picnic, dancing (Blacks and whites danced separately) and baseball games, but people bought tickets for the barbecue, shaved ice, soft drinks (no liquor allowed) and ball-toss carnival games. Kids enjoyed a merry-go-round ride. The event grew to three days with 1,000 people attending each day. The family remembers there was never any trouble. The picnics lasted into the 1960s.
Emory sponsored the Grapevine Auctioneers baseball team, which played in a field near the auction barn. Teams from Fort Worth, Dallas, Grand Prairie, Keller and Argyle played each other, and often the teams were integrated. On Sunday afternoons, a hundred or more people would be in the stands. The Auctioneers disbanded in 1968 when Emory passed away.
Marilyn Tucker didn’t know Bob and Almeady Jones, but she knew they loved and respected the land. In 1968, Marilyn and her husband, Gene, purchased 60 acres that Artie Jones Clay had inherited, and raised their two sons there. In 1999, Marilyn sold the land to the city with the provision that it would never be developed. “We wanted the land to be loved,” she said. In 2008, the Bob Jones Nature Center & Preserve was dedicated.
In 2021, a statue of Bob and Almeady commissioned by the Southlake Arts Council was placed next to the playground in Bob Jones Park. According to the city, “the statue is a memorial to the monumental role the Jones family played in Southlake’s development.”
This article is based on the Southlake Historical Society’s award-winning exhibit “Bob and Almeady Chisum Jones: A True Story of Resilience, Courage and Success,” which was displayed in summer 2020 at Southlake Town Hall. It was researched and written by Anita Robeson, SHS historian, and Connie Cooley, SHS president. The exhibit’s permanent home is the Bob Jones Nature Center’s visitors center. To view the exhibit online, visit SouthlakeHistory.org.