Sac City Tour | Wayt&Winters Family

The pioneers: Wooster Beach and Emmeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt.
(courtesy Wooster Bertram Wayt)

Wooster Bertram 'Bert' Wayt outside his grandfather's monument company which is now the Sac City Museum, June 11, 2009.

1202 Hobbs Street, Sac City. Home of Jim and Mary Kincade, originally owned by the Moody family. Jim inherited the home from his father and has lived in it all his life. Home is located right next door to the home of Walter Earl Wayt, Bert's father.

1208 Hobbs, Sac City, boyhood home of Bert Wayt. Originally built in the 1920s and remained in the family until ~1942, when it was sold to purchase farm machinery. (Bert entered the Army in 1941 and had planned to serve out only the obligatory year hitch, but then the U.S. formally entered the War after the attack on Pearl Harbor, so Bert was called to active duty.)

Boyhood home of Bert Wayt.

300 5th St., Sac City, home of Wooster Beach and Emeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt. Built in the early 1920s.

Home of Wooster Beach and Emeretta Augusta Marsh Wayt.

515 Leonard St., Sac City, home of Bertram M. and Velma Wayt Grable.

Home of Bertram M. and Velma Wayt Grable.

1002 Main St., Sac City, home of Leon Reginald and Mary Blaine Lamoreaux Wayt. Older home than that of Leon's siblings and father, the building has gone through a number of changes over the years. For example, it's not hard to see that the rooms on the lower level covered with ivy were added to what was once a long open porch.

Home of Leon Reginald and Mary Blaine Lamoreaux Wayt.

The old Sac City train depot, across Main street from the W.B. Wayt Monument Company. Both the Milwaukee Railroad and the Northwestern Railroad came into Sac City back in those days. Interestingly, even though it is now a pizza place, it has kept the name 'The Depot.'

615 W. Main St., Sac City, site of the W.B. Wayt Monument Company, now the home of the Sac City Museum.

Out building next to the main building of the monument company built right next to the (now gone) railroad tracks. This building was used to unload large granite slabs that Mr. W.B. Wayt would ship after personally overseeing purchases made in the United States (Vermont, the Dakotas, and Minnesota) as well as Scotland. Evidently, Scotland had the more desireable stone.

Side view of the monument company building showing 'Monuments.' It was exciting to see the company logo with the Wayt family name on a building that was built so long ago (completed in 1913).

Site of the original W.B. Wayt Monument Company on 5th St. in Sac City (now a bank parking lot).

Photo of the original W.B. Wayt Monument Company on the corner of 5th and Audubon Streets in Sac City. Without the railroad running directly by, it makes one wonder how they ever maneuvered those massive granite slabs!
(photo courtesy Sac City Museum)

Photo of the 'new' monument company building as it was nearing completion in 1913. Note the trellis structure over the monuments. This was used to hoist and lower the finished monuments in and out of the working areas inside the building.

W.B. Wayt's desk, still inside the office where he worked.

Original safe inside the office. Note the name painted at the top and the wonderful wood trim.

Inside the safe, now used as a storage closet for the museum. Note the window near the top of the photo. This is for the rest room located right beside the safe and was installed when the building was built! I guess they believed that even a robber wouldn't stoop that low.

Hoist inside the back part of the building used to maneuver the granite slabs. Note the railcar-style wheels and 'track' built into the upper wall.

Elevator to the working areas (sand blasting rooms, cut & lettering rooms, finishing area) from the first floor. There was a basement and an upper floor, as well.

View up the elevator shaft. The thick rope on the left was the used to hoist and lower the elevator - no powered units back then! (I imagine that it probably required more than one person to raise or lower the elevator when a significant ly sized granite slab was loaded onto it!)

Photo of what is now known as 'Wayt Corner' in the basement of the museum. There are a number of artifacts from the old business stored here, including this wood burning stove. If you look closely on the wall next to the large painting on the right, you can see a cluster of old invoices from the company (closeup next slide).

Old invoices from the business.

Buffalo head that used to hang inside the sales room in the building.

Early electric typewriter used by the business.

Horse brush with company advertisement, probably used as a promotional device.

Wonderful photo of the business as it appeared back in its day. Seated behind the desk is Leon R. Wayt with his son, Donald.

The museum has an entire folder on the Wayts and their monument business. This is a sample from the materials. (courtesy Sac City Museum)

Wedding dress, shoes, and gloves of Vivian Louise Wayt Bechler, daughter of Leon R. and Mary Blaine Lamoreaux Wayt, in a showcase at the museum.

Another sample of the historical materials at the museum related to the Wayts. (courtesy Sac City Museum)

Leon Reginal Wayt (courtesy Sac City Museum)

Sac City contains a number of other elements which were a part of Bert's life growing up. This is the Chatauqua Building, a large theatre that featured balls and traveling shows.

This is the entrance to the Sac County fairgrounds. Bert ran an ice cream stand here with a friend the year he graduated high school. The fairgrounds featured a 1/2mi dirt track used for horse racing, and eventually, auto racing. Cars could reach speeds of 60mph. The track was also used for high school meets, but could get pretty muddy at times. (Bert ran a half-mile race here in high school.)

Recreational building constructed in the 1920s that contained the first indoor pool in the area. Was also used as a gymnasium.

Olson's Grocery, just a block away from Bert's home where he worked as a teenager. Building is now closed.

Merriman Grocery located (interestingly) directly across the street from Olson's. Bert also worked here. In addition to the grocery jobs, Bert also worked in the Civilian Conservation Corp, did a stint with his grandfather's monument company, worked at the Dekalb Seed Company (before entering the War), and even took a turn as a disc jockey at station KWEW-1490 on the 'Old Fashioned Gospel Hour' program during the 1950s.