When Mac Woodling returned from WW II the only thing on his mind was marrying Alma, his high school sweetheart from Jim Bowie High School (“Home of the Fightin’ Knives”). Once that mission was accomplished, he set about trying to find his life’s calling.

He’d inherited 80 acres off Highway 285 and eventually he and Alma bought a brand new 33’ Spartan Royal Mansion to put on it and call home. The darned thing gleamed just like a diamond in a goat’s butt out on the prairie when the sun hit it just right. Folks in Fort Stockton used to say that the Royal Mansion was worth more than the 80 acres it sat on.

A year later Mac found an advertisement in the back of the Pecos-Area Men’s Journal for Valentine Diners out of Kansas City. For an investment of $5,000 (that could be financed at $40 per month) he could have a pre-fabricated diner built by the Valentine Manufacturing Company of Wichita, Kansas, put on a flatbed railcar and delivered right to Fort Stockton.

Former Boeing employee Arthur Valentine had been a visionary who had folks just like Mac and Alma in mind when he began selling and shipping the pre-fab diners all over the country just as Americans were beginning to make cross country trips by car commonplace.

Mac and Alma took delivery of their Valentine Diner in early 1951 and set it up about 150 yards away from their Spartan Royal Mansion. The family could work, sleep, play, and eat and never have to leave the property. They named the 9-stool model they’d purchased from Valentine ‘The Palo Duro Diner’ and in no time it became a fixture in southwest Texas.

Most of the time Mac would man the diner by himself, but Alma would keep an eye open out the window over the sink of the Spartan and if 8 or 10 cars were parked outside the diner she’d tie on her flour sack apron and come running to lend a hand.

Folks claimed Mac made the best scrambled eggs and biscuits in the whole Lone Star state and his burgers were second to none. Only Alma knew that the secret to the eggs was a spoonful of mayo to make them smoother.

A buddy of Mac’s from the Prince Castle Multi-Mixer Company who’d sold him the malt mixers for the diner came by one day and wanted to talk to him about ‘the next big thing’ in the roadside food business. Ray came over to the Spartan and laid out his whole franchising scheme the dinette table while Alma put a pot of coffee on the Magic Chef and the kids played outside chasing road-runners.

When Mac heard what the potential profits were, his big bushy blond eyebrows turned into two golden arches. Ray was not clowning around with this new concept. But when Alma figured out they’d have to sell the Spartan Royal Mansion and the Palo Duro Diner just to finance the fledgling franchise, she put her foot down and told Ray the whole scheme was a Kroc.

There were no hard feelings. Mac even gave Ray the recipe for the special sauce he used on his burgers. Ray returned the favor by naming his own version the Big Mac. They both ended up doing okay for themselves. Ray changed the way Americans eat by developing the drive-thru window. Mac discovered oil under his 80 acres with a drilling rig set up just behind the Royal Mansion.

Things always have a way of working out.