In the early days, merchants built small stores on each of the incoming streets to Union. They sold gas, kept a small stock of goods, and issued charge accounts. They were convenient for those living near them or outside of town.
Before the overhead bridge was built on old Hwy. 15 South, travelers used the Old Decatur Road to enter Union from the south. Around 1921, the first store that travelers saw was R. Lee Vance Grocery and Service Station at 508 S. Decatur Street, the northwest corner of South Decatur and James Streets across from the town cemetery (street numbers have changed). Mr. Vance had moved his family to Union from Stratton and opened this Pan Am station. Then by 1927, Baxter Barfoot had become co-owner with Vance.
William Ralph James shares an interesting history about his great-grandfather William Rufus Hollingsworth that has passed orally through his family. After Lee Vance had moved from Stratton, his friend W.F. Hollings-worth decided to move to Union also. He bought property west of the Old Decatur Road on the south side of James Street. On that land he built a home at 304 James Street that is still standing.
Hollingsworth immediately built a small store described as in the middle of where Hwy. 15 (S. Decatur St.) runs today. In the early 1930s, he lost this first store to the right-of-way of Hwy. 15 when the state wanted to straighten the road. His store was demolished, and the state extended Decatur Street southward and built the overhead bridge that was completed in 1934, routing traffic over it onto a straight highway to come out near Burns Road. After losing his first store, Hollingsworth, in turn, bought the Vance and Barfoot station/store on the corner in 1933 and named it W.F. Hollingsworth Service Station. It advertised selling dry goods and groceries. By this time, the station had been changed to sell PURE gas.
Upon the death of W.R. in Jan. 1936, his wife Martha changed the store’s name to Mrs. W.R Hollingsworth, which pictures show that she had painted on the south side of her building. After a short time, her son George Freeman Hollingsworth moved his family from Detroit to help her with the store. He sold the store in 1946 or 1947 to Henry Fred Barfoot, who had just returned from WWII.
Fred Allen Barfoot, Fred’s son, gives an inside history to the business during the late 1940s. He recalls, “In those days, some edge-of-town stores sold gas, kerosene, soft drinks, cigarettes, snuff, tobacco, candy and maybe a few house basics such as mustard and mayonnaise. Others were stocked more completely, as this store was. They also sold a variety of canned goods, lard substitutes such as Crisco, 25-pound bags of flour, hoop cheese, a variety of cold meats (especially the ever-popular “boloney”) and even fresh produce in season – celery apples, oranges, bananas (but rarely in summer when heat ripened them too quickly).”
Barfoot sold his store to Ned Chamblee in March 1953. In 1954, Joe and Ned Chamblee ran it and changed the name to Chamblee Grocery. In Aug. 1955, they sold to M.G. Hudson, whose store became Hudson’s Cash Grocery. Next, Hudson sold his store, and it became Thompson’s Decatur St. Grocery (In 1977, the address was 516 Decatur Street). In 1978, Mr. and Mrs. Roger Jordan opened Jordan’s Grocery. In 1984, the name was again Decatur Street Grocery.
The once popular gas/grocery store on the corner ended in 1986 when Video World opened there. In 1990, A & D Video Rentals advertised. Then in 1993, Little Dooey’s BBQ Express came to the parking lot every Wednesday.
Business type changed again in 1996 as Apple Grate Diner opened. In August 2001, Sadie and Jack Nelson began their restaurant business S & A Fine Dining there.
In 2005, the old store saw another change as Antonio Rogers opened his Tonio’s Detail Shop (car wash) there. Since that time, various others have used this area for a detail shop. The last one located there in 2017, and since then the old store, one of the few old buildings in Union that never burned, has remained closed.
I have a personal memory of this store location to share. When my age group of fifteen-year-olds were able to get a driver’s license, the ever-popular thing to do was make a “loop.” Without question, everyone, old and young alike, knew that “loop” meant circling the power pole just outside Hudson’s (at that time) parking lot and traveling up Decatur St. to Jackson Rd. where we turned left and rode to the west side of town to circle just west of Johnnie Nicholson’s Recreation Center near the depot and then back to the pole at Hudson’s again. In addition, every friend met on that loop heard the loud blare of a friendly horn, only to answer it with a return blare. Memories…
Here are this week’s questions?
• When did this loop end? Did your age group make the “loop”?
• Other stores on the edge-of-town will be in future issues. If you have memories to share, please contact me.
If you know any additional information or have memories of businesses in this building, please contact me at teresa-blount26@yahoo.com or 601-774-5564 or 109 Woodhaven Drive, Union 39365.
