DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of the Paris Gum Factory, right here in Hidalgo County. Now, most great Texas stories don't start in Texas. This one starts in Detroit, Michigan, in the middle of a world war.
Andrew J. Paris was running a tobacconist shop up there with his family, and the war had put a serious crimp in things. Rationing meant no sweets — and no sweets in a candy and tobacco shop is a problem with a capital P.
Most folks would've just waited it out. Paris went looking for a solution. In 1942, he found it.
Down in Mexico City, of all places, he found an ample supply of candies and chewing gum. Enough to save his family's store. Now you might think that's where the story ends — man finds candy, goes home, everybody's happy.
But Andrew Paris was not that kind of man. By 1945, he had established an import business in McAllen, Texas, bringing gum up from Mexico. Then in 1946 — and here's where it gets interesting — he converted Mexican chewing gum factories to bubble gum production.
Not only that, he cornered the latex market. The whole thing. Word travels fast when you're sitting on something that big.
In February of 1947, LIFE magazine came calling and gave him a title: the Bubble Gum King. And if LIFE magazine says it, well, it's practically scripture. Then on October 1st, 1947, the Paris Gum Factory opened right there in McAllen.
The building was something to see — a genuine Art Deco design, drawn up by a McAllen architect named Lucile Hendricks. Inside, fifty Hispanic women went to work in an air-conditioned building at a time when air conditioning was no small thing. The gum they made went out to buyers worldwide.
The factory ran until 1955. A decade that started with a candy shortage in a Detroit shop during wartime wound up with a Bubble Gum King, a landmark building, and chewing gum shipping out of the Rio Grande Valley to the whole wide world. Andrew J.
Paris lived until 1997. I'd like to think he chewed a piece every now and then and remembered that trip to Mexico City.
What the marker says
During WWII, because of rationing, Andrew J. Paris (1919-1997) and his family had no sweets to sell in their Detroit, MI. tobacconist shop. In 1942, in Mexico City, Paris found an ample supply of candies and chewing gum to save his family's store. In 1945, he established an import business in McAllen bringing in gum from Mexico. In 1946, he converted Mexican chewing gum factories to bubble gum production and cornered the latex market. In Feb. 1947, LIFE magazine dubbed him the "Bubble Gum King." On Oct. 1, 1947, the Paris Gum Factory opened in McAllen, employing fifty Hispanic women in the air-conditioned building, with sales worldwide. The Art-Deco factory designed by Lucile Hendricks of McAllen closed in 1955. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2012