Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
Mr. Caywood’s Wagon Rolls Again
by Mike Brown
Rockdale Reporter - September 12, 2013
Thirty-one years after its owner passed away at the age of 92, and a century after he first began rolling around Rockdale in one, Lee Caywood’s last wagon is back where the public can see it.
Saturday marked the debut of the old “two-mule” wagon on permanent display outside at the I&GN Depot Historical Museum.
The wagon was lovingly restored by Rockdale Historical Society volunteer Gary Jackson. “It took me 106 hours,” Jackson said. “I put in another 20 or so working on the lean-to where it’s being displayed from now on.”
Familiar - For many decades, Caywood, a near lifelong resident of the Talbott Ridge community east of Rockdale, was a familiar site on local streets.
Decades after everyone else had switched to cars and pickups, Caywood would hitch up a pair of mules to a wagon and make almost daily trips into Rockdale.
Clad in his signature overalls, Caywood made his rounds selling vegetables, making deliveries from house to house.
There were many times when the vegetables were free for needy families.
He was never too busy to stop and visit with children, generation after generation of them.
In the era before garden tractors, Caywood was also Rockdale’s “plowman.” Each spring he’d add ground tilling to his trips, using the plow he kept in the wagon and the two hard-working mules.
A plow is chained inside the restored wagon as a tribute to Caywood.
The wagon was donated to the depot museum by former Rockdale resident Jerry Caywood, a grandson of Lee Caywood.
NO BILLS - To say “they don’t make them like Lee Caywood any more” would be an understatement.
He was born Sept. 15, 1888 and by the time he was a young man, Caywood was living at Talbott Ridge, independent and self-sufficient.
In the severe drought year of 1925, the week after running a story about a Cameron area farmer who only had a store account (debt) of $31, Reporter Publisher John Esten Cooke got a visit from Caywood.
“I can tell you about a farmer who has no store account whatsoever, and hasn’t had one in 11 years, and that’s me,” Caywood said.
Caywood raised melons, cantaloupes, radishes, peas, turnips, plums, berries, grapes “and all kinds of garden truck” in season.
When he ran out of crops to sell, he peddled wood, about 150 loads a year by the mid-1920s.
He also raised cotton.
Caywood told Cooke he attributed his success to “scientific cultivation,” breaking land nine inches deep and bedding it “high and wide.”
Caywood said his goal was to have something to sell every time he loaded up the wagon and went into town (Rockdale).
The Talbott Ridge farmer told the publisher he didn’t buy anything at all on credit, not even medicine.
PROJECT - Jackson worked on the wagon project inside a depot warehouse and decided to roll it out on Saturday as part of Rockdale’s antique appraisal-garage sale weekend.
A small plaque on the wagon gives a brief history of Lee Caywood’s life.
Mike Brown
by Mike Brown
Rockdale Reporter - September 12, 2013
Thirty-one years after its owner passed away at the age of 92, and a century after he first began rolling around Rockdale in one, Lee Caywood’s last wagon is back where the public can see it.
Saturday marked the debut of the old “two-mule” wagon on permanent display outside at the I&GN Depot Historical Museum.
The wagon was lovingly restored by Rockdale Historical Society volunteer Gary Jackson. “It took me 106 hours,” Jackson said. “I put in another 20 or so working on the lean-to where it’s being displayed from now on.”
Familiar - For many decades, Caywood, a near lifelong resident of the Talbott Ridge community east of Rockdale, was a familiar site on local streets.
Decades after everyone else had switched to cars and pickups, Caywood would hitch up a pair of mules to a wagon and make almost daily trips into Rockdale.
Clad in his signature overalls, Caywood made his rounds selling vegetables, making deliveries from house to house.
There were many times when the vegetables were free for needy families.
He was never too busy to stop and visit with children, generation after generation of them.
In the era before garden tractors, Caywood was also Rockdale’s “plowman.” Each spring he’d add ground tilling to his trips, using the plow he kept in the wagon and the two hard-working mules.
A plow is chained inside the restored wagon as a tribute to Caywood.
The wagon was donated to the depot museum by former Rockdale resident Jerry Caywood, a grandson of Lee Caywood.
NO BILLS - To say “they don’t make them like Lee Caywood any more” would be an understatement.
He was born Sept. 15, 1888 and by the time he was a young man, Caywood was living at Talbott Ridge, independent and self-sufficient.
In the severe drought year of 1925, the week after running a story about a Cameron area farmer who only had a store account (debt) of $31, Reporter Publisher John Esten Cooke got a visit from Caywood.
“I can tell you about a farmer who has no store account whatsoever, and hasn’t had one in 11 years, and that’s me,” Caywood said.
Caywood raised melons, cantaloupes, radishes, peas, turnips, plums, berries, grapes “and all kinds of garden truck” in season.
When he ran out of crops to sell, he peddled wood, about 150 loads a year by the mid-1920s.
He also raised cotton.
Caywood told Cooke he attributed his success to “scientific cultivation,” breaking land nine inches deep and bedding it “high and wide.”
Caywood said his goal was to have something to sell every time he loaded up the wagon and went into town (Rockdale).
The Talbott Ridge farmer told the publisher he didn’t buy anything at all on credit, not even medicine.
PROJECT - Jackson worked on the wagon project inside a depot warehouse and decided to roll it out on Saturday as part of Rockdale’s antique appraisal-garage sale weekend.
A small plaque on the wagon gives a brief history of Lee Caywood’s life.
Mike Brown
All credit for this article goes to
Mike Brown
and the
Rockdale Reporter
Mike Brown
and the
Rockdale Reporter
From left, Dave Phillips, Gary Jackson and Jack Brooks roll the late Lee Caywood’s vintage wagon out of storage at the I&GN Depot Museum Saturday. Jackson spent 106 hours restoring the wagon which is now on permanent display under a lean-to next to the depot’s blacksmith shop.
Lee Caywood
.