Monday, February 21, 2011

Colorful San Angelo trader was the real deal

Some of the best stories I found during my quest for the St. Angelus Roof Garden were about Homer Nickel, cedar post dealer, salvage expert, rancher and trader extraordinaire. The Missouri native grew up in California, moved to San Angelo in 1943 and lived here until his too-soon death from cancer in 1966 at age 55. He founded the Twin Mountains Supply Co. on the Mertzon highway just west of town. One of his most legendary spending sprees happened in 1964 during the demolition of the St. Angelus Hotel. Homer bought the huge neon sign on the hotel's roof "for an undetermined sum and for an undisclosed purpose," according to a story in the Standard-Times. He also bought 250 toilets from the doomed hotel, 200 wash basins, 200 bathtubs, ceiling fans, ceramic and floor tile for 250 bathrooms, about 40 miles of pipe and hundreds of pounds of fittings. Robert Nickel, Homer's son, has a funny story about the commodes. Homer's cedar post operation next to the Twin Mountains covered a lot of land. Robert said they scattered the commodes "out in the pasture, so they could be seen from the highway." The "advertising" worked. "We sold them from there. People could go out in the pasture and pick one out and take it to town." Homer also bought a huge "penny scale" from the St. Angelus. Robert has a story about that, too. The scales hadn't been used since World War II, Robert said. "It had been forgotten about and half hidden. We uncovered it, put some pennies in it, and it sort of worked." When Homer called a man "to come out and open it up, quite a lot of pennies came out," Robert remembered. "My dad said, 'My goodness! I wonder what they're worth.' " Homer brought in two coin experts, one from Waco and the other from Austin. "He told them about the pennies. They showed up at the same time." Homer took them into the house, to a bedroom where he had scattered the hundreds of pennies all over a bed. He told the men to stand several feet back from the bed, at the edge of a carpet. "I want you to bid on them from the edge of that carpet," he said. "But Homer," one man argued, "we can't see the dates, and we don't know anything about those pennies." "I don't either," Homer replied. "That makes us even." "We got a couple of hundred dollars for that deal," Robert said, laughing...more

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