TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT A 1950s business card for Ledwell and Son Truck Body & Equipment Company captures the company’s early years as a family-run operation.
Steve Ledwell visits with children from Watersprings Ranch in 2018, highlighting Ledwell’s longstanding commitment to community involvement.
L.W. “Buddy” Ledwell is pictured in his office in 2011, reflecting on decades of leadership that helped shape the company’s growth.
For 80 years, Ledwell’s values have remained unchanged. The Ledwell family has always been a circle of reluctant storytellers, not out of modesty alone, but out of principle. They are quick to credit their employees for the company’s success and are deliberate in offering support quietly rather than with public recognition. Ask a Ledwell about the company’s growth, and the answer turns away from the family name and toward the welders, builders, engineers, drivers, and teams whose skill, loyalty, and pride have carried the business forward for decades. In their view, the true measure of success is collective effort, not applause. This has been the mindset of the Ledwell organization from the beginning. Their story is quite remarkable. With a strong desire to own his own business, Buddy Ledwell took advantage of the GI Bill, which was created to assist veterans transitioning back to civilian life. Buddy began selling lumber milled in Arkansas to address construction needs in Houston, Texas. In June 1946, Buddy borrowed $1,500 to buy a new two-and-a-half-ton truck for $1,742.32. Buddy and his father went into business, and L.W. Ledwell & Son was established. The framework was simple: Mr. Ledwell, Sr., would buy lumber from a local sawmill, and it would be hand loaded onto the truck. Buddy drove to Houston, sold the lumber to builders, and returned home. According to Boots Thomas, a longtime Ledwell employee, the journey would take 22 hours round-trip because of the gravel roads. “He would take naps in his cab at truck stops along the way,
and he made those trips month after month. That truck did not have air conditioning or heat. He had to do everything the hard way,” Thomas said. He put in sixteen hours or more a day and slept only a couple of hours each night. Known for his work ethic and self-discipline developed in the military, Buddy believed there was nothing he could not do with hard work and determination. According to Buddy’s son Steve, surviving the war made Buddy somewhat fearless in business. “He believed that if money could solve your problem, then you did not have a problem.” He would often toss out nuggets of wisdom to his family and employees. Some of his mottos included: “No one ever drowned in his own sweat,” “God gives every bird its food, but He will not throw it into the nest,” and “Just do it, son, just do it.” And that is exactly what Buddy did when he came up with a creative trailer design and used his welding skills to bring it to life. Before long, custom trucks and trailers became a passion for the Ledwells. Buddy’s guiding principles ensured every business deal was good for both parties. Over the years, he crossed paths with the likes of J.B. Hunt of the successful rice and trucking industries in Arkansas, Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim of Texas’s Pilgrim’s Pride, and W.A. Taylor of Taylor Machine Works out of Mississippi. Each friendship and business deal made among these men was reciprocal and added value to their respective companies. Boots Thomas and Steve Ledwell were a part of a core group of “Ledwell Men” who worked tirelessly to take Ledwell to the
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BUSINESS & POLITICS
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