Looking back on it, my town was a somewhat idyllic little place, almost Mayberry-ish. The commercial district was compact, only one about two blocks long, stores/businesses sharing walls along either side of its length. It had two side streets that turned off main street. Growth was blocked on the south by the railroad, and on the west by the Sabine River. Main street ended abruptly at the river bridge which crossed over to Texas.
But this compact layout contained an amazing assortment of businesses. There were two hardware stores, two drug stores, one super market (Piggly Wiggly), a furniture store, a Western Auto, a bank, a hotel, a branch library, a cafe, two or three general merchandise stores, two barber shops, a shoe repair, a plumber's office, a doctor's office. One of the town's two dentists had his office in the upstairs of an auto parts/repair business. In the center of town stood the movie theater.
The side streets provided another diner, a newspaper office, a pool/domino hall, a feed store and a cotton gin. Along the railroad track was a depot which in my time served as a tomato packing shed. The Chevrolet dealership anchored one end of main street, the Ford dealership the other. A welcome addition in the mid-50s was the Frosty Shop, a hamburger joint which became the central hub of teenage social life.
In the late 40s and early 50s, it retained much of its old bucolic flavor. There were hitching rails along main street, and it was not unusual to see mule-drawn wagons and saddle horses tied in front of stores. Saturday was the day when the country folks came to town. They came early and stayed late. They shopped for necessities, yes, but mostly it was a social occasion. For the kids it was double-feature movies at the theater, followed by a root beer float or banana split at one of the drugstores.
One of the town's more endearing features was that there was not a single lawyer's office there.
Fast forward 60 years: The town is still there, and the buildings on both sides of the main drag appear to house some kind of commercial activity, but I can't recall what. The businesses that gave the town its character are gone. Now even the trademark bridge is gone, replaced by one accessed by a loop around the back of the business district. Most of the town's 1,200 or so inhabitants are much younger than me, so I suppose they can't miss what they never knew.
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Today's Featured Article - Old Time Threshing - by Anthony West. A lovely harvest evening late September 1947, I was a school boy, like all school boys I loved harvest time. The golden corn ripens well and early, the stoking, stacking,.... the drawing in with the tractors and trailers and a few buck rakes thrown in, and possibly a heavy horse. It would be a great day for the collies and the terrier dogs, rats and mice would be at the bottom of the stacks so the dogs, would have a busy time hunting and killing, all the corn was gathered and ricked in what we c
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