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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 389

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They lived in the back of the store. They built a little room outside that and put a grist mill in. All the area south of there, people from Pond Beat, came there. Jones had a gin and a warehouse across the road. And a seed house. Jordan Lane came all the way down then. Pond Beat Acquaintance. Wesley said that the Jacobs family raised horses. Lawrence Jacobs was the farm manager of A&M College. Wesley didn't dwell on this question. Gin. The area that Wesley described as the location of the gin and grist mill is at the intersection of Neal Road and Patton (formerly Jordan Lane). It was described in more detail by Odis Golden who lived on the property nearby that was owned by J.F. Geiger. [Note: At this point John Wesley suggested his father, Mr. Wesley Thomas, age 92, was becoming tired, and the interview was ended.] Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Thomas in the 1930s. Source: The Redstone Rocket, July 2, 1980. In a July 2, 1980 article in The Redstone Rocket, entitled “Staying Close to Home,” Ed Peters reported talking with Wesley Thomas. At that time, Thomas was renting pasture on the arsenal and was grazing beef cows on some of the same land where he had lived and grown cotton and corn 39 years in the past. At the time of the interview, Wesley said his son, “young John” had grown up and become an engineer at Marshal Space Flight Center. The article included a photograph of Wesley's parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Thomas, when they were at their home on the property rented from Whitaker (C-99). 389 - (4422)    

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