REMEMBER WHEN FROM THE PAST--CENTRAL MARKET TO PAYSON MARKET

Remember When
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Kenna Holm

FROM CENTRAL MARKET TO PAYSON MARKET

    Thinking back over the years of the grocerymarkets we had in town Ikept thinking how fun those markets were. We now have 3 big store, Smith’s, Payson Market, and WalMart.   Back then it was Safeway and Central Market.
    I want to talk about Central Market and how it grew and changed hands.  Central Market was located on the East Side of the Main Street between the OLD library on the corner of Utah Avenue and Main Street and Roe's Bakery.
    Before it was Central Market it was a big co-op store and it had been open for over 20 years when Roy Rodgers and Leon Fullmer bought  the  building  and  called  it  Central
Market. I described the store in an early article of  Remember When.
    My mom worked at that store as a checker along with Fern Lucas. Fred Robertson was
assistant manager, Art Daley and Leon Fullmer worked in the meat department.

    Roy later built a market in Spanish Fork called The Foodliner and RayAngus (Fay's husband) was his manager there. That was in the early 1960's.
    Roy also built a new market on the corner of 1st North and 2nd East (where NAPA is now) here in Payson.  Instead of keeping the name Central Market, he changed the name to Roy's Market. There motto was "Service and Quality" and they did give great service.

   After 2 years of managing the Spanish Fork Store, Roy brought Ray over to Payson to manage his Roy's Food Mart. Roy decided he wanted to retire so he sold the store to Ray in 1972. It then became Ray's Foodmart.

    In 1975, Ray added a lot more space to the store and made the parking lot larger. He
now could have a new frozen food and produce section and also the dairy departments were expanded.  He added more shelving so he could carry more merchandise.
    He had many who worked for him over the years, Mary Lou Draper, Louise DeGraw,  Larry Houser was Assistant Manager, Glen Thatcher, Lillian Davis (KarenRiding's and Nedra Curtis' mom),  Jennie Wilson (Carol Sue Mortensen's mom) Cora Montague,  Leona Baron and  I probably could go on and on with more but that is a few I remember.
    In August of 1983, Ray sold the store and it changed hands and names several times. The last was Day's Market and was there until they opened up the big Payson Market at 560 North Main  and moved there. Many things have changed over the years but isn't it fun to look back and remember when.