END OF AN ERA: CITY'S ICONIC MODEL LAUNDRY DEMOLISHED

By Steve Clark

The wrecking ball and backhoe are obliterating what once was literally a Model  of employment and enterprise in Brownsville and across South Texas.

Founded by business patriarch William Henry “Bill” Putegnat III who died in 2015 at the age of 98 on June 2015, it had provided jobs for countless local families.

Now it has been purchased by the Brownsville Independent School District with an eye to provide a better entrance and an additional 250 parking spaces to complement the $6.5 million in renovations planned for Sams Stadium. 

Putegnat, alongside his twin brother Barry B. Putegnat Sr., built the company they inherited as teenagers in Brownsville into a powerhouse in the industrial laundry market in the Southwest.

At its peak, Model Laundry had plants in Corpus Christi , Laredo , San Antonio , Albuquerque and Denver in addition to the Rio Grande Valley, according to Bill’s son Michael Putegnat , a Brownsville resident.

“They were connected at the hip the whole time,” he said. “My father was the entrepreneur in the sense that he wanted to grow the business. My uncle wanted to work in the plant. They were different kinds of guys.”

Model Landry and Dry Cleaning was founded in the 1890s by Michael’s grandfather William H. Putegnat II, who realized there was money to be made contracting with the federal government for laundry services at Fort Brown . The original plant was on East 14th Street in Brownsville where the Gateway International Bridge stands today.

Michael’s great-grandfather was William H. Putegnat, son of Jean Pierre Putegnat , a farmer from the Lorraine region of France who emigrated to the United States around 1830, settling first in Mobile, Ala., before moving with his family to Brownsville and opening a pharmacy.

Michael’s grandfather, a successful, well dressed young entrepreneur, died with his wife in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, orphaning Michael’s father and Uncle Barry when they were toddlers. 

The boys, along with their sister, were adopted by their grandmother and, when she died five years later, by their great-grandmother in San Antonio .

In 1935, at the age of 18, the brothers inherited interest in the Putegnat Company, which had maintained operations and whose holdings included “this little laundry,” Michael said. They returned to Brownsville, attended St. Joseph ’s Academy and Brownsville High School , and set about becoming businessmen.

(Story by Brownsville Herald's Steve Clark and photos courtesy of Bronsbil Estacion.) 

http://bronsbilestacion.blogspot.com/2015/06/model-laundry.html