Industry & Business

Industry and Business. A Growing Community, also, People. Majors Field in Greenville became the site of a major source of manufacturing following world war two. In 1951, the city secured a contract to lease some of the field to Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Company (TEMCO). Thus began Majors Field's new life as a site for rebuilding aircraft., TEMCO was founded by Robert McCulloch in 1945 in Dallas and one of its first main contracts was with Globe Aircraft Company to manufacture the Swift aircraft. Unfortunately, the Globe Company soon failed. TEMCO then began to develop its own products and entered the missile, aircraft and electronics systems business, winning contracts with the Navy and later the Air Force. It's contract with the Air Force C-54s had TEMCO looking for a site with an airfield, which is when Greenville came to their attention., Beginning with 400 people, by 1960, TEMCO had over 2000 employees in Greenville. A few years later it merged with other companies to become Ling-TEMCO-Vought (LTV) and had over 4500 employees. In 1965, LTV was split into three main corporations. The LTV Electrosystems, Inc. portion had plants in Greenville, Dallas and Garland, which were focused on aerospace and electronic activities. In 1972 LTV sold its stock of Electrosystems, which created the need for a new name, E-Systems, Inc., The Greenville division of E-Systems, with 2,604 employees in 1980, focused primarily on producing airborne electronic surveillance systems. In addition, highly specialized projects in the special intelligence area of the U.S. Intelligence Community were accomplished by the Greenville Division. In April 1995, E-Systems was acquired by Raytheon. In 2002, L3 Integrated Systems acquired Raytheon Aircraft Integration Systems. L3 Integrated Systems later changed its name to L-3 Communications and then L3 Technologies. In 2019 L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation merged and became L3 Harris Technologies., In 1926, Adelaida Cuellar and her children took a break from farming in the fields to open a booth at the Kaufman County Fair. The booth served tamales, enchiladas, and chili and brought in $300 in profit more than the family usually made in a year from farming. From these humble beginnings, the Cuellar children would go on to open and operate a multimillion-dollar business founded on the recipes and work ethic of their parents., In 1934, two of her sons, Gilbert and Alfred Cuellar, opened a café in Greenville that was first going to be called the Carta Blanca Café but was quickly changed to Cuellar Café before the opening. After running restaurants separately in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, five of the Cuellar brothers (Gilbert, Mack Jr., Frank Sr., Alfred and Willie Jack) decided to pool their resources in 1940 to open and operate a restaurant venture in Dallas. The restaurant, located at 3514 Oak Lawn, opened under the name El Chico and was an instant success with two more restaurants soon following in Dallas and Ft. Worth. By 1978, the El Chico Corporation, run by the Cuellar brothers, had opened 95 restaurants in 11 states., Captions , (Photo #1) Lee Street, 1950's , Reverse Side , Billy Cook , Billy Cook opened his first saddle shop in Greenville, TX in 1953. He built 75 saddles in his first year. As his business grew over the next few years, he partnered with Potts-Longhorn and production was scaled to 1,200 saddles a year by the end of the 50s and it became known as Billy Cook Saddlery/Potts Longhorn. Billy Cook's saddles were meticulously hand tooled on sturdy saddle trees and were some of the best production saddles of that time, gaining international recognition. He later opened another shop in downtown Greenville making harnesses, called Billy Cook Harness. In the 1980s, the company started having financial trouble, was foreclosed on by the bank and went up for auction. It was bought by Don Motsenbocker who was the founder and owner of Action. With the sale, Billy lost the exclusive rights to his name and the original dies and patterns he had created. A few years later, Billy Cook moved his saddle-making operation to Sulphur, Oklahoma where it remains today, and they regained the rights to the Makers Mark. In recent years, if you purchased a saddle labeled "Billy Cook Saddlery," it was made in Greenville. A saddle labeled "Genuine Billy Cook Saddle" was made in Sulphur, OK, where Cook lived and worked in his later years until he died on Oct. 1, 2019., Jeana Yeager , Jeana Yeager was born in Ft. Worth on May 18, 1952. In 1986, Yeager became the first woman to fly an airplane nonstop around the world without refueling. While growing up in White Rock, TX., she became interested in flying helicopters. She graduated from Commerce High School in 1970. After moving to California, Yeager received her pilot's license in 1977 and became involved in experimental aerospace design. While attending an air show in Chino, California in 1980, Yeager met fellow pilot Dick Rutan along with Rutan's brother, Burt Rutan, an aircraft designer. Dick Rutan, who had flown combat missions in the Vietnam war and was 14 years older than Yeager, was a featured aerobatic flier at the show. At the time, he held the title of chief test pilot for Burt Rutan's aircraft company, which was based in California's Mojave Desert. In the early 1980s Yeager moved to the desert to work as a pilot for Burt Rutan's company, flying Rutan aircraft. There she set new speed records for a woman pilot. She and fellow pilot Dick Rutan made history when their custom-built aircraft, Voyager, became the first airplane to completely circle the globe on one load of fuel in 1986. The journey took 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds. In recognition of this achievement, Jeana received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan, the Harmon Trophy and was the first woman to receive the Collier Trophy.