NAYLORS FARM & RANCH SUPPLY

Farming > Agriculture

Harold Naylor graduated from Oklahoma A&M specializing in Poultry Husbandry. After serving as an Army Lieutenant In WWI, he and Ethel Simonson were married in Loveland, Oklahoma in 1919. He taught at El Reno High School and Oklahoma A&M. In 1924, they moved to Corpus Christi with their two small sons, Morton and Glen, in order to truck farm with his father. In September 1926, Harold and Ethel opened their own business, Corpus Christi Hatchery. The next year brought the birth of their third child, Marietta, and the following year Harold's brother, Gilbert, joined the business.

The ten acres Harold and Ethel bought for their business, on what is now Old Robstown Road, was, at that time, well out in the country as the paved road extended only six blocks from the bluff. Hatching baby chicks was the primary business in 1926. In the 1930s, a broiler operation and processing plant was started. For more than 25 years many of the better restaurants and grocery stores served and sold dressed poultry from Corpus Christi Hatchery's Blue Ribbon Fed Poultry. The food shortage of WWII made the poultry industry an essential part of our lives as it was not a rationed item. Cow and goat milk from the small dairy also helped relieve the food shortage.

Marietta married Melvin Kronk, who was just out of the Navy after WWII, in 1946 and he also joined the business. As the city grew up around the Hatchery it became necessary to move the poultry to a farm outside of town in Odem. Fresh eggs were sold in the store until the farm was sold in 1969.

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