DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here on the Texas plains, where the wind doesn't ask permission and hail comes calling like it's got a grudge, one man decided he was going to grow cotton on his own terms. That man was Clemens Von Roeder, born in 1888 in Austin County.
Now, most folks just plant what they plant and hope for the best. Clemens wasn't most folks. Come 1923, he started working with mutations.
Mutations. While other farmers were wrestling with whatever nature handed them, this man was peering into the plant itself, coaxing something new out of it. What he produced was a long staple, big boll cotton.
That right there is the kind of result that turns heads at the gin and down the road at the fiber markets of the world. But Clemens wasn't finished. He kept adding strains, strains built to resist hail, to stand up to windstorms, to fight off rust.
He was, in the plainest sense, breeding toughness into the plant, one generation at a time. Then in 1934 his brother Nolan joined him. Two Von Roeders now, working the same vision.
In 1940 they were joined by Bentley Baize, an agricultural executive who knew his way around a market. And in 1957 Nolan's son Max came aboard, making this a proper family enterprise with professional reach. What came out of all that work carries names you can still say with weight: Texas Mammoth and Western Prolific, bred for hand-picking.
And Western Storm Proof, built for modern mechanical harvesting, because the world was changing and the Von Roeders made sure their cotton changed with it. Pioneer cotton breeders, the marker calls them. Aides to the world fiber market and economy.
Out here in Scurry County, that's not a small thing to put on a plaque. That's a life's work, and then some.
What the marker says
Pioneer cotton breeders; aides to world fiber market, economy. Clemens Von Roeder, born 1888 in Austin County. As farmer began use of mutations, 1923, produced a long staple, big boll cotton; later added strains to resist hail, windstorm, rust. He was joined by his brother Nolan in 1934; Bentley Baize, an agricultural executive, 1940; and Nolan's son, Max, in 1957. Von Roeder-marketed seeds are Texas Mammoth and Western Prolific, for hand-picking; and Western Storm Proof, for modern mechanical harvesting. (1967)