A Texas Legend

I've been going to estate sales for about 8 years and buying things to sell on Ebay. A few years ago, I went to a sale in Phoenix on a Friday morning. I was looking through a utility room on the outside of the house and picked up an old helmet. It was made of some kind of hard plastic (almost like fiberglass) and had a leather lining. On the front, there was a logo: a big W inside a circle. At first, I thought it was a motorcycle helmet. When I paid for it (a whopping $5), I asked the lady who was doing the sale if she knew what the logo was. She said, "The woman who lived here was married to a man named Bill Waggoner back in the 50's. His family owns the largest ranch in Texas." OK, so the W stood for Waggoner but why would they put their logo on a motorcycle helmet? The helmet had a manufacturer's tag on it so when I got home that night, I started Googling the company name. (How did we ever do any research before Google? Oh yeah... we went to libraries! I wonder what ever happened to those?) I found out that the company that made the helmet started making fireman's helmets in the 1930's and then made boat racing helmets in the 1950's. Aha! It was a boat racing helmet! Cool! But why would a Texas rancher have a boat racing helmet? So I began Googling "Bill Wagner" which brought up tons of useless information. Finally, I tried the alternate spelling "Waggoner" and the results I got were absolutely amazing!

Bill Waggoner was actually W.T. Waggoner II whose great grandfather established the Waggoner Ranch 13 miles south of Vernon, Texas in 1849. It is still the largest ranch in Texas under one fence. He was a larger than life character and always wore a ten-gallon hat and a couple of six-shooters (not real) on his belt. Bill apparently became bored of being rich and powerful and went to a hydroplane race (the APBA Gold Cup Regatta) on Seattle's Lake Washington in 1955. He was immediately hooked and within a year he had formed his own racing team and became a powerful presence in the sport. He hired the best designer/team manager in the sport - Ted Jones, and 2 inexperienced drivers - Russ Schleeh and Bill Stead. Between 1956 and 1959, Bill's team won twelve races and two National Championships. He began with 2 boats: SHANTY I (named after his wife Mary Beth whose nickname was Shanty) and MAVERICK. SHANTY I was the National High Point Champion in 1956 and established a world record for a 3.75 mile competition lap at 115.979 miles per hour on Lake Washington. In 1957, SHANTY I crashed during a test run on the Potomac River, nearly killing the driver, Russ Schleeh. The first MAVERICK caught fire and burned in 1959 and a new MAVERICK (U-00) won Waggoner's second National Championship that year.

At the end of 1959, Waggoner's team was at the top of their form and a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately Bill developed a series of illnesses at that time and died in 1962. His widow, Shanty, continued to live in their upscale Phoenix mansion until her death in 2005. She hung onto a lot of Bill's racing memories and many of them were sold during her estate sale that Friday morning.

Getting back to the helmet: Armed with the knowledge I had gained about Bill, I listed it on Ebay with links to several websites that told his story, one of which had photos of one of his boats with the same logo that was on the helmet clearly visible on the boat's hull. During the week it was listed, I became aware that hydroplane racing fans are just as crazy about their sport as any NASCAR fan. The number of watchers went into the low 100's and the bids went up and up. It finally sold for just over $1000. The man who bought it was an ex-hydroplane mechanic who knew Bill back in the old days and had amassed a huge collection of boat racing memorabilia. He was thrilled with the helmet and told me he was going to send it to the Hydroplane & Race Boat Museum in Kent Washington as part of a display.

I have sold a lot of items on Ebay over the years but none of them had as much historical significance as the helmet. And Shanty Waggoner, if you're reading this from heaven, I want to say Thank You for not throwing out all of Bill's stuff when he died.