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The first shot in the World's Largest Chair battle was fired in 1905, when Gardner, Massachusetts, erected a Mission chair 12 feet tall. Eventually a rebel yell came from the reconstructed South; Thomasville, North Carolina -- which claimed to be the "Furniture and Hosiery Capital of the World" -- built a chair 13 feet, 6 inches tall in 1927. Up went eyebrows in Gardner; With Yankee pluck the self-proclaimed "Chair City of the World" countered with a 15-foot Mission chair in 1928. Then, as an exclamation point on its claim, Gardner tore down the Mission and replaced it with a 16-foot Colonial Hitchcock in 1935. World War II briefly waylaid the giant chair battle, but Thomasville fired the first postwar shot in 1948, when it unveiled an 18-foot Duncan Phyfe, placing it on a 12-foot pedestal. Thomasville encouraged neighboring High Point to build the world's largest bureau, and convinced Vice-President Lyndon Johnson to sit in its big chair. Built of concrete and steel, the Thomasville Duncan Phyfe still stands, the World's Oldest Largest Chair.
Other towns quickly entered the scrum. Bennington, Vermont, put up a 19-foot Ladderback in the 1950s (It was torn down in 2000). Washington, DC, bested Bennington's chair with a Duncan Phyfe six inches taller. Morristown, Tennessee, surpassed DC's chair with a green Recliner made of sheet metal -- a behemoth 20 feet tall that could seat ten across. But by 1962, it was gone. Gardner, still fighting, built a Haywood-Wakefield 20 feet, 7 inches tall, ostensibly to honor the Bicentennial. Ten feet wide and nine feet deep, it was, for a year, the world's largest. Private enterprise stepped into the fray and escalated the fight. A lumber store named Pa's Woodshed in Binghamton, New York, built a 24 foot, 9-inch Ladderback, recognized as the World's Largest by Guinness World's Records in 1979 -- only to have it surpassed that same year by a huge Fireside Chair, 25 feet tall, built by the Hunt Country Furniture Co. in Wingdale, New York. And then the South rose again. In 1981 Leonard "Sonny" Miller built a 33-foot office chair next to his furniture store in Anniston, Alabama.
Made of ten tons of steel, it held the World's Largest title for over two decades despite a valiant second effort by the Hunt Country Furniture Co., which tore down its Wingdale chair and replaced it with a 30-footer in 1996. Not quite big enough, it was destroyed in a storm in 2001. Then, in late 2003, a company from Italy of all places erected a 40-foot-tall, 24-ton chair in the parking lot of the L.A. Mart in Los Angeles. California bragged that its European mercenary was the Largest Chair in America, which indeed it was. The seat of power had moved to a foreign land -- until the USA got redemption from an unexpected source.... Rocking chairs remained noncombatants in the Big Chair War until 1990, when a 21-footer was built in Penrose, Colorado. It remained tops in its specialized field until the 21st century -- and then rockers suddenly rocketed for the sky. The Star of Texas, unveiled in 2002, stands 26 feet tall. Big John, built in 2004 in Franklin, Indiana, reaches 34 feet. Then in 2008 -- the same year that a 34-foot log chair was built in Deadwood, South Dakota, and a 35-foot rocking chair in Gulfport, Mississippi -- a mighty rocker of steel was unveiled, 42 feet tall, built along Route 66 in Fanning, Missouri.
And then in 2015, all previous USA records were shattered when a wooden rocker, towering 56.5 feet high, was topped-off in Casey, Illinois. The Largest Chair in America was once again American-made. But it's not the Largest in the World. That prize still belongs to the Italians, with a 65-footer in a traffic circle in Manzano.FORT McKAVETT - The chaos created by the Civil War during the 1860s encouraged Loyd C. Whitehead's great-grandparents to pull up roots in Georgia and search for the open range in Texas. They settled on land near Blanket in eastern Brown County. "In 1903, my grandparents (Carey Barnett and Effie Bayer Whitehead) moved to McCulloch County from Blanket when they brought a ranch on Calf Creek, southwest of Brady," Loyd Whitehead said. "My dad (Whitey Whitehead) was born at Blanket, but my uncle Gene Whitehead was born at the Calf Creek place. By the way, my second cousin, Jeanagyle Behrens, still lives on the original Whitehead Ranch where my grandparents lived." C.B. Whitehead and his sons, Whitey and Gene, partnered in the ranching business and founded the Brady Freight Line during the 1930s Depression years.
They later consolidated with Sunset Truck Lines in San Antonio. After moving the headquarters to San Angelo, they eventually sold the company to Standard-Times publisher Houston Harte by trading their Sunset holdings for Merchants Motor Lines in 1944 and moved the headquarters to Abilene in 1954. In 1958, the Whitehead brothers purchased the 19,396-acre Rocking Chair Ranch, about 25 miles north of Fort McKavett, which lies at the four corners of Tom Green, Schleicher, Concho and Menard counties, the largest single tract being more than 7,000 acres in Schleicher County. What keeps you in the business? Loyd Whitehead: I love the ranching business. It's in my heart. What's the most unique features of the ranches? The Lipan Springs division, besides the springs which is rocked to form a small lake, has part of Susan Peak mountain on it. The Fort McKavett division is some of the best ranchland. It's situated in rolling hill country with beautiful liveoaks, and the Whitehead Ranch in Menard County has an original log cabin on it, which was believed to be the home of the first white settlers in the area.
It is near Celery Creek. How have you diversified the operation? We participate in wildlife management and cater to recreational activities with guided and lease hunts for whitetail deer and turkey. We have been working to improve our whitetail deer genetics population by breeding with larger trophy bucks. Like our ranch neighbors, we are constantly working to control our mesquite and cedar. In recent years, we have maintained brush strips across the pastures for the benefit of wildlife protection. What's the family brand? The Rocking Chair is our brand. My grandfather used the flying W. The Rocking Chair was a combination of several tracts of old ranches put together from 1903 to 1905 by Blair M. Boyd of Hillsboro, Ohio. Prior owners included B.E. Earle, B. S. Reed and J. K. Thompson. The Rocking Chair brand was founded by a previous owner and continues to be used today by Loyd Whitehead. In 1971, Loyd Whitehead purchased the historic Susan Peak Lipan Springs Ranch, 20 miles southeast of San Angelo, from the Col. R.S. "Dick" Waring Estate.
Centered at the headwaters of Lipan Creek, a two-story native rock building served as a stagecoach stop and sub-post office in 1852 for a line that operated between Fort Chadbourne and Fort McKavett. Although Loyd spent his early years on a Whitehead Ranch, he was a Dallas businessman during much of his adult life, coming to the Rocking Chair only on weekends. Shortly after taking possession of Lipan Springs Ranch, Whitehead renovated three existing houses and restored the old stage station. After retiring in Dallas after 40 years, Loyd Whitehead and his wife, Carol, and two daughters, Brie and Gentry, became full-time residents at Lipan Springs 16 years ago. In the meantime, he's on the road overseeing the other divisions of the Rocking Chair Ranch and the Gene Whitehead Ranch between Eden and Menard. Carey Barnett and Effie Bayer Whitehead were pioneer McCulloch County ranchers in the 1880s. They had two sons: Chester Lloyd "Whitey" Whitehead and Eugene "Gene" Whitehead. C.L. Whitehead married Nora House.