Purity Ice Cream - Galveston, TX - Neon Signs on Waymarking.com

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The applicants are requesting designation of the “Purity Ice Cream” pole sign at the above reference address, as a Galveston Landmark. The following is a brief history of the Purity Ice Cream Co. from the Rosenberg Library website:

Purity Ice Cream Co. which was founded in Galveston. As few remember, it was Purity Ice Cream, rather than that delicious treat found in Brenham, that is the oldest ice cream manufacturer in Texas. Purity Ice Cream Co. first opened in 1889, and was located on 1202 Postoffice Street, Galveston, TX. Each of the Museum's six glasses is marked with the “Purity” logo in Gold. The set was donated to the library by Margaret and Elizabeth Runge in 1995. Ice cream has been a delicacy since the 4th century B.C. Kings, emperors, and rulers alike have enjoyed variations of nectar, fruit, honey, ice, and milk concoctions as the recipes traveled from China throughout Europe. Once it was imported to the United States, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other founding fathers were so delighted by the flavors that they served it to all of their guests. The first Gelateria (ice cream shop) in the United States was established in New York in 1770, and this “iced cream” dessert became a favorite dish among Colonials.

The ice cream industry as it is known today was holy developed on American soil, and the past few centuries have brought several improvements to this creamy confection. These include the addition of salt to ice cream - which lowered and controlled the temperature of the ingredients - as well as the invention of wooden bucket freezers with rotary paddles. Augustus Jackson, a former White House Chef, was given the “title father of ice cream” because he created several popular ice cream methods and flavors In 1832. In 1846, Nancy Johnson patented a hand-crank freezer that established the basic method of making ice cream that is still used today. The first large-scale commercial ice cream plant was established in 1851. It was the introduction of mechanical refrigeration that made ice cream commercially distributable.

Purity Ice Cream Co., Texas's oldest ice cream company, was a family operation which opened in 1889. However, there is an ongoing debate concerning who were the original founders of the company. It was either both owned and operated by The Brynston family from inception, or it was started by Mr. Jerry Sullivan and his partner, Mr. Ben Willis, before it was sold to the Brynston family. Regardless of the true founder, Purity ice cream was so popular in Galveston County that few drug store soda fountains or neighborhood grocery stores carried any other brand name. Every location proudly displayed the Purity neon signs.

The factory on 1202 Postoffice churned eighteen flavors, each made from cream bought from Lufkin, TX. During its heyday, this relatively small plant manufactured 5,000 gallons of ice cream per month - and still had troubles keeping up with demand. In early 1900s, the factory delivered is confessions to local shops by horse-drawn wagons. For the holiday season, Purity would sell festive flavors such as eggnog and peppermint. Even during times of war when ingredients were scarce, Purity still produced popular ice cream flavors like chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. During World War I, Camp Wallace, the Hitchcock Naval Air Station in Hitchcock, Texas, was its biggest customer

After the death of its owner, Mr Gustav Brynston, the Purity Ice Cream Co. closed its doors in 1979 after almost a century of ice cream sales. The King Family bought the Purity Ice Cream Co., it's equipment and real estate at 12th and Postoffice Streets as well as the famous Purity formulas.

As per Article 10 of the Land Development Regulations, the following criteria should be considered during the Landmark Designation review process:

1. The character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristic of the city of Galveston, Galveston County, the State of Texas, or the United States.

The Purity Ice Cream Co. is a valuable part of Galveston’s cultural heritage. It is also important to the cultural heritage of the State of Texas due to being the oldest ice cream manufacturer in the state.

2. Recognition of the structure as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, National Historic Landmark, or entered into the National Register of Historic Places.

The sign is located within the East End National Historic Landmark District.

3. Association, of the structure, with the lives of people significant in the city, region, state or national past.

The site is associated with the lives of the Brynston family that founded the Purity Ice Cream Co.

4. Distinctive characteristics, of the structure, of the period or method of the construction, architecture; representative of, or a rare survivor of, the work of a master builder, builder, or craftsman.

The sign is a rare example of Purity Ice Cream sign that were displayed in locations across Galveston.

5. The structures representation of an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or city.

The Purity ice cream sign has been an established and familiar visual feature of the city since the 1940s.

6. Opportunity to preserve a property that is primarily commemorative in intent but reflects an age, design, tradition, or symbolic value that has invested it with it own historical significance.

The Purity Ice Cream sign was intended to mark the location of the Purity Ice Cream Co. Since the use of the property has changed, the sign is a symbolic reminder of the original location of this important business.

A few years ago the Jack King family bought the Purity Ice Cream Co. it’s real estate at 12th and Avenue E, and its equipment and recipes from the estate of G. B. Brynston. Their reason for the acquisition was to be able to manufacture ice cream for their popular Strand business, La King’s Confectionery.

Laura Elder, then a reporter for the Houston Business Journal, wrote in a front page article that Purity would soon resume manufacturing ice cream to be sold elsewhere, perhaps up to the 5,000 gallons a month the factory made and sold when Brynston was the owner.

Like Blue Bell ice cream, until it closed, Purity was so popular in Galveston County that few drugstore soda fountains or neighborhood grocery stores carried any other brand. In fact, all of the public school cafeterias had it in individual cup servings with little wooden spoons.

The ice cream was high in butter fat and was, in the main, flavored with natural ingredients like real strawberries, and it was always fresh, so you can imagine it started the taste race far ahead of its competition.

At special times of the year like Christmas and New Year’s, seasonal flavors arrived like peppermint and eggnog. In addition to the normal favorites – vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry – butter pecan was the most popular. The King family won’t have any trouble Whatsoever in getting testimony from oldtime locals that not even Blue Bell has approached the goodness of Brynston’s Purity.

In addition to his famous ice cream, Brynston, although a quiet behind-the-scenes kind of businessman, was an astute marketer. Drugstore soda fountains were major sources of ice cream sales in those days, and there were an enormous number of family-owned neighborhood throughout the county. In fact in Galveston of the forty drugstores, only Walgreen’s at 22nd and Postoffice was owned by a national firm.

To not only get the account but assure allegiance, Brynston would supply at Purity’s cost the soda fountain ice cream freezers and would provide the store’s fancy outside neon sign with the name of the store on top and Purity’s name below. And when the cash flow was short for the drugstore owner, he could depend on quietly making a very low interest rate, unsecured loan with Brynston to get the store over the hump.

For years Brynston resisted installing an automatic valve on a certain piece of equipment at the factory, and no matter what, according to Brynston, that valve had to be manually turned off at exactly ten o’clock each evening. He claimed it was not only impossible but silly to expect to find a regular employee who would sit in the plant from five o’clock in the afternoon until 10 o’clock that evening with the sole duty of turning off that valve.

So Brynston set up a couple of top loaded freezers in the plant’s front office and a counter where people in their neighborhood could come in and buy a pint, quart or half-gallon of freshly made ice cream. To handle the sales and the turning off of that important valve at exactly ten o’clock, he hired school teachers, a different one to work each night.

His pitch to the teachers was that they could grade papers and make money at the same time. But more importantly, in those days if school employees contributed to Social Security as well as the mandatory Teacher’s Retirement, they were able to draw both when they retired. Brynston’s plan gave those teachers like Riley H. Lefevers, George W. Bertschler, William O. Barlow and Arthur L. Graham, who moonlighted with Purity, that extra advantage.

I concluded long ago that Brynston purposely chose not to automate that valve, and the decision had nothing whatsoever to do with the ice cream manufacturing business. And further, maybe it didn’t even need to be turned off at exactly ten o’clock each night. It seems much more likely to me that the whole thing was a dignified scheme to help teachers.

G. B. Brynston was like that.