An Appetite for Growth

History of Collin Street Bakery

August Weidmann, a German immigrant, founded Collin Street Bakery in 1896 with the financial backing of Tom McElwee, a local cotton buyer, in Corsicana, Texas, site of the first oil strike west of the Mississippi River. Although Weidmann’s specialty was a holiday fruitcake, the bakery’s primary function was to provide bread to the region. After World War II, bakeries in Dallas began to penetrate the Corsicana bread market. At this point, the McNutt family bought the bread bakery, which also sold fruitcake at Christmas, and turned it into an international direct marketer of fruitcakes that also sold bread.