The Man from Nickel, Leslie Jones Askey. (original) (raw)

As a young man growing up at Nickel, he spent a lot of time with an uncle named George Cooper. �I probably spent as much or more time with him then I did my own family,� said Les. �I liked being with him �cause he had a truck.� It is apparent that his uncle had a lot of influence on the young man and Les mentioned him a number of times during our interview.

It seems that about 1926 or 1927 his uncle George had to haul some wool to the local depot for shipment to Houston. The railroad agent told them that he was getting ready to close and they would have to come back the next day. Les said his uncle told the man that they lived a long way from the station, but that didn�t make any difference to the agent. �I told my uncle, �why in the hell don�t we just haul it to Houston ourselves?�� But his uncle was afraid they would get lost and so they didn�t try it; but young Askey knew that he had just got his first taste of the freight-hauling business.

Upon graduation from school Askey said he just sort of �floated around� between Nickel and San Antonio for four or five years before he finally settled down. It was during these years that he bought a Model-T Ford truck in San Antonio for $150 and did a little freight hauling. He got jobs transporting cattle from Gonzales County to San Antonio. Les said he has loved trucks ever since.

He settled in San Antonio and took what jobs he could find to make a living. �I washed dishes and I worked for a meat-packing company, a trucking company, you name it�.� said Askey. But there was little doubt that he was destined to be in the trucking business, and that would be his trade from 1927 up until he retired from it in 1960 � he was only out of the business for a short time from 1929 to around 1933; working as a cattle inspector in Zapata, Texas.

During his time in the freight-hauling business, Les Askey owned or was in partnership with three trucking companies. He owned Victory Truck Line in the 1940s, and it was during that time that he took on a partner who stole half a million dollars from him. �I could have had him put in jail,� Askey said, �but we settled out of court.�

He also owned Hill Country Express which he later sold to Basse Truck Line, and that company is still in business today. Then he bought A&B Truck Line from a guy in Corpus. His permit allowed him to haul freight all the way to the Alaska Territory, before it was part of the United States. In 1959, he sold A&B and then in 1960 he got out of the trucking business to pursue other interests. He was still �buying and selling� through 1980.

Les has many memories of his time spent hauling freight across the country. �We moved a captured German V-2 rocket from Alamogordo, New Mexico, to Pensacola, Florida, for the government,� said Askey. �We did a lot of work for the government that we weren�t allowed to talk about back then.� He recalls carrying freight to Ft. Hood, Texas, and how his trucks would be taken inside the mountains and unloaded. Les says those mountains were full of ammunition.

While Les was hauling for the government, nearly every railroad and trucking company in Texas filed suit against him � they were envious of the lucrative contracts and wanted a piece of the action. �They took us to court but we won,� he said.

During his life, Les Askey has hauled an interesting assortment of items. He mentioned hauling rice in the El Campo, Texas, area; and even a little moonshine during prohibition days � then there was that time when he bought over 300 self-contained ice cream trucks and resold them making an enormous profit. �I had a lot of fun in the trucking business,� said Askey. �Selling those ice cream trucks got me out of debt; I�ve got a lot of respect for ice cream, I eat a bunch of it.�

Besides trucking, he ventured into the restaurant business for a while. Les said his wife, Doris, was feeding nearly all of the company drivers out of their home and the men liked the food so much that they suggested she open her own cafe. They built the establishment in 1958 on Roosevelt Street in San Antonio � it was called �Mrs. Askey�s Kitchen� and although it was later sold, the business is still there and operating as a restaurant under a different name. Doris Askey passed away in 1999.

Although he spent most of his life in San Antonio, there is no doubt that Askey�s roots are in this area. He has kinfolk in Lavaca and Gonzales Counties. He is related to the Askeys from Gonzaleswho gained fame years ago raising champion racehorses. �They had two famous horses called Rebel and Joe Murphy; those horses were shipped to New York and out of 38 races they won 34,� Askey said.

It is safe to say that Les Askey has accomplished a lot since he left Nickel all those years ago. He loves competition and when someone tells him that it is impossible to do something, you can bet he is going to give it a try. He could be considered as the classic example of an entrepreneur. He doesn�t talk much about being retired; fact is he doesn�t consider himself retired at all. �I never did quit,� said Les. �I am still piddling around.�

He comes back to Nickel every now and then just to see how things have changed. Recalling his memories of the old store, Les is still upset about someone chopping down a huge live oak tree that was standing out front. That happened many years ago but he can�t understand why anyone would take down such a beautiful tree. �People around here should have never let them cut that tree down,� he said. �It wasn�t bothering anybody.�

Les Askey still resides in San Antonio near the restaurant he once owned and it could be that he is thinking of a way to crank up another business � that�s what entrepreneurs do you know.