06/17/2026
Ninnie Baird, founder of Mrs. Baird's Bread, and her granddaughters. Her life story is one of determination, resilience and triumph over hardship. Ninnie was born in 1869 in Gibson County, Tennessee. Her mother died when Ninnie was five years old. Her father remarried and she lived with her father and stepmother until her father died in 1882 when she was 73. She lived with her aunt for the next three years, until she met William Allen Baird, who was also an orphan. They were married in 1886, when Ninnie was seventeen years old and William was nineteen.
The couple settled near Trenton, Tennessee, where William built a house on family land and worked as a woodcutter. They moved in 1898 to Obion, Tennessee, where he was in the restaurant and bakery business. In 1901 the family, now with four children, moved to Fort Worth, where William introduced the first steam popcorn machine to the city at Seventh and Main streets. The bright red machine with its brass fittings and steam whistle became an instant success, and within eight months another one followed, at Fifth and Main. The success of the popcorn machines gave William the capital to buy another restaurant, for which Ninnie was the baker. She gained a reputation for her excellent bread, cakes, and pies.
Not long afterward, William became ill with diabetes, an untreatable disease in those days. By this time, the family had grown to eight children, and the three oldest, Bess, Dewey, and Hoyt, worked with their father and mother in the restaurant learning the bakery trade. All of the baking was done with a four-loaf, wood-burning oven that required splitting of wood and stoking to keep a constant temperature. The restaurant was recognized for its bakery products and had a thriving business in the neighborhood. With her husband's failing health, Ninnie recognized that she could make a living baking bread. So, in 1908, she sold the restaurant and founded Mrs. Baird's Bread. And the rest, as they say, is history. She died in 1961 at the age of 92.
This great photo courtesy the TCU Library You can show your support for them and for all of the archives I feature here by following them and visiting them.
