Mathes Company helped area through difficult times

HIGHLAND LAKES —  During the 1950s people traveling the southern United States would often spot big trucks with the words “Mathes Company” written on the side. 

“You would see them all over the place,” Marble Falls resident Martin McLean said.

There’s a good chance those trucks originated in Marble Falls where the Mathes Company set up a manufacturing operation in 1954 on the banks of Lake Marble Falls. At its peak, the company ran three shifts and employed 300-400 people.

Many credit the company with helping keep the local economy afloat as a drought worsened and forced farmers and ranchers to look for other kinds of work.

However, the business climate changed as the 1950s became the 1960s, and the company was sold and moved to the Dallas area. But that didn’t change how many of the employees felt about the business and its leader Curtis “Bud” Mathes.

On Saturday, former employees will hold their annual company reunion at the Marble Falls Church of Christ starting at 10 a.m. with a potluck meal at noon. The church is located at 711 Broadway.

“I started the reunion at the insistence of a few other former employees back in 1991,” McLean said. “We’ve had a reunion every year since. But, as you can imagine, there are fewer of us now.”

McLean worked for the Mathes Company starting in 1955. When the company was sold and moved to the Dallas area in 1961, he and his family followed for a few years. 

“But we had to get back to Marble Falls,” said McLean, who today is the president of the Marble Falls Independent School District board and was the Burnet County judge for many years.

Still, the company has a special place in his and many former employees’ hearts.

The Mathes Company was a family-owned business that already had operations in Fort Worth and Center when the Marble Falls facility opened. McLean said the company may have chosen Marble Falls because there was a large industrial building already in place and empty.

The move to Marble Falls couldn’t have come at a better time, not only for locals but for people across Central Texas.

“At this time the area was going through a tremendous drought,” McLean said.

A dry period that began in the early 1950s and extended into the 1960s earned the reputation as the “drought of record.” Droughts since that period are often compared to it to determine how bad things are. According to the Lower Colorado River Authority reports, Lake Travis hit five of its lowest recorded levels during that period.

“It was a very tough time for this area,” McLean said. “The drought really hurt us. So many of the employees at Mathes were farmers and ranchers who needed to take another job because things were so bad for them.”

The Mathes Company employees came from all over Central Texas.

“It wasn’t just a Marble Falls company,” he said. “There were people who drove up from Johnson City and came from as far north as Lampasas. I know at least one person who came over from Liberty Hill.”

Along with providing several hundred jobs, McLean said the company spent money in  the community.

“The company was important to the community,” he said. “It was important to Central Texas.”

And it all started with a simple fan. 

The Mathes Company made electric fans for homes. 

“They started out making fans, but then somebody had this idea to build a cabinet around the fan,” McLean said. “And they were very attractive so it looked like a nice piece of furniture. Those fans really took off.”

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the family-owned business began moving into air-conditioning units for residential rooms and industries.

But those room or window units were just compressors and metal parts until the Mathes Company added its own design to them.

“Like their fans, the company added a frame to the window units that were very, very attractive,” McLean said. “The air conditioning units became extremely popular. They were selling all over the South and the country.”

Eventually the company became a victim of its own success.

“The air condition units became so popular the company couldn’t keep up with the demand,” McLean said. “So in 1961 the company sold and moved to Dallas.”

In 1964, a fire destroyed the Mathes building in Marble Falls. The structure had stood for almost 80 years before the blaze.

Despite the years passing between when the company was in Marble Falls and today, McLean recalled the chief executive fondly.

Mathes, the son of Curtis Mathes, was a University of Texas graduate with an engineering degree.

“Bud — that’s what he was known as — was a genius when it came to engineering and air conditioning,” McLean said. “He could tell you how to put an a/c unit together from pieces scattered around the floor.”

Then McLean laughed.

“But you know, he couldn’t remember to put gas in his car,” he said. “You would  call his wife (Elaine) and tell her that Bud ran out of gas in Hico. And, she’d say, ‘It’s not the first time. And he probably doesn’t have any money on him.’ Yeah, he never carried cash on him, either.”

More than once Bud Mathes called over to McLean for a cigarette. Since McLean didn’t smoke he would either buy a pack for the company executive or borrow one from a co-worker.

“He was pretty special,” McLean said. “He could come down from his room and just light the place up.”

Following the sale of the company, the family moved to Athens, Texas, where they began an electronics-manufacturing business which included television sets featuring their now-famous wood cabinetry.

Bud Mathes died in 1983 along with 22 other passengers on Air Canada Flight when a fire broke out in the aircraft.

Seventeen years ago, McLean began organizing the company reunions. He and other former employees began tracking down their co-workers. Some stayed in the area but others scattered around Texas and the United States. 

Turnouts have been strong in the past, McLean said.

But since the Mathes Company operated in the 1950s and early 1960s, McLean said many of the employees have died, making each reunion more special.

“I’ll be there,” he said. “It’s a big thing to those who worked there.”

And the company is an important part of the area’s history.

“The Mathes Company is pretty special. At the time everybody was proud Mathes was here. But as time goes by, it’s even become more special,” McLean said. “I still miss Bud Mathes. He was a pretty special guy.”

For more information on the reunion, contact (830) 693-4006.