Leander resident served as Scarbrough department store Santa

Leander resident served as Scarbrough department store Santa

By Karen R. Thompson Friday, 07 December 2007

In the 1950s, when Leander area families started making plans for annual Santa Claus photographs, the children knew that meant a trip to Austin’s E.M. Scarbrough & Sons Department Store at Congress Avenue and Sixth Street.

Of course, what they didn’t realize was that the Scarbrough’s Santa Claus was actually Fred Rollin of Leander. Fred performed this annual holiday “job” for many years.

Scarbrough & Hicks Store started in Rockdale in 1884 and moved to Austin a decade later. In 1913, it became E.M. Scarbrough & Sons. It was the fifth largest department store in Texas. In the 1930s, the beautiful Scarbrough building became Austin’s first sky scraper and the first department store to be fully air conditioned.