Remember When From the Past--The Farmer's Merc.

 Remember When
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Kenna Holm  

Farmer’s Merc
    Well, I’ve been scratching my head this week about which story I wanted to write about. This keeps me on my toes and my brain thinking.  I keep thinking about the corner down on Main Street and First North where the light is now. On the corner was Commercial Bank where Wells Fargo Bank is now. Roy Broadbent worked as a cashier there and went on to be manager of that bank and also First Security when the name was changed.

   Next to the bank was the old Farmers Merc. It actually stood where the drive through is at the bank is now. In fact it wrapped around the bank. It had a north entrance and an east entrance. The bank was just a small building on the corner, nothing like it is today.
    Farmers Merc. had everything. The thing I remember most is the x-ray machine you stuck
your foot in to see if the new shoes you were trying on fit the way they were supposed to. It seemed like magic to actually see the bones in your foot, and it looked greenish yellow. Remember?
    They had food in the northwest side of the store and it had an outside door on that side so if you just wanted groceries you could go in there and pick them out.  Shirlene Wood said she remembers her mom sending her up to the Merc. to get a pound of hamburger for ten cents. (oh wouldn’t that be nice now?) She also remembers that they carried Happy Hiker shoes and she loved them. They probably cost all of 2 or3 dollars then.  But she loved those shoes.  They were just plain lace up shoes.
    The dry goods were on the south side and had a door that went in from the east.  They carried just about everything in that store.  The one thing I remember was when you bought something the clerk would put the receipt and money in a tube and shoot it up to the office where they would make change and send it back down. We were really modern then.

   The store was run by the McCormick’s and they lived down on North Main where Lynn and Lorna Powell lived years ago.  This is the house just north of the old Douglas home on 200 North.   Henerietta Douglas and Iris Amos worked in the office. I’m not sure who all worked at the store during the years but I do remember Carl Butler working there when he was in high school or shortly after he graduated.  He had such a good  personality and of course all us young high school (or maybe we were jr. high ) girls thought he was real  cute.
    Later on Commercial Bank wanted to buy the property on the west side of the bank to expand its size. So the Farmers Merc. closed it s doors in about 1955 or 56. The bank extended its building to the west and Bradshaw Auto took over the south side of the the Merc.  The Bradshaw Auto Parts  store and it was run by Gene Smith.  On the south side of  Bradshaws was Dixon-Taylor-Russell (DTR) ‘s furniture store. Later the bank bought out Bradshaw s and made their  drive thru on the south of the bank.

I’m sure there are more stories about Farmers Merc. but this is what I remember and it stretches our memories to remember when....