“A few weeks ago, at Pence Springs Community Church, my friend Dale Hedrick told me he had something for me in his car. After services were over, we walked outside and Dale handed me these two papers you see here: “The Areopagus”, it was a publication of Talcott High School.
One is dated May 5, 1933, and the other is May 29, 1933. I don’t have any quite this old–the others I have in my collection my friend Alvin Garten left me from the 1940s when he passed away in 2013. Those had several of my family in them as in the 1940s my family was more active in the Talcott area.
I always enjoy the old advertisements for local businesses. In these papers they include: The Hub Clothing Company in Hinton (that still has its 1930s black and white store front on Temple St.), Miller Mercantile Company in Talcott (I have an early hand flour sifter advertisement piece this business put out that Tom Hutchison gave me last year and I mentioned it in one of my previous stories), and L. G. Rhodes General Merchandise in Talcott (this is the building the John Henry museum is now in).
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Basrian Brothers Co.: the official stationers to Talcott School, Smiths Drug Store in Alderson (I have an early glass medicine bottle from it), The First National Bank in Hinton, Keatleys Barber Shoppe in Alderson, J. W. Gillispie Service Station, The Palace Clothing Co. in Hinton, and Riverside Inn in Pence Springs (this is where the skating rink was for the youth of Summers County, it was where Tyler’s Bar-B-Q Lunch was located that I wrote about prior and this is where Aashby Berkley formed the world famous “Riverside Inn, making “period dining” in the 1970s a local thing before it caught on).
The National Bank of Summers in Hinton, M.D. Tomkins & Sons General Merchants, Barnette Funeral Homes, Inc. in Hinton (I just recently did a story on this funeral home that was operated in what is now Ziegler and Ziegler Law office), Summers Printing Co. in Hinton, C. D. Hanger, Jr Jeweler in Alderson and Masonic Theatre in Hinton.
Alderson Jewelry Store in Alderson, The Shenandoah Press in Dayton Virginia, The Ritz Beauty Shop, Harrison Studio in Hinton, Masonic Fountain, Rhodes and Pyles in Pence Springs (this business was originally called Rhodes General Merchandise, after Mr. Rhodes married one of the Pyles sisters the name was changed to “Rhodes and Pyles” and Wilson’s Sanitary Fountain in Hinton.
Hinton Builders Supply in Hinton and Keatley’s Barber & Beauty Shoppe in Alderson,. Many of these local businesses I have written about in the past two years. Several I had never heard of and will have to research them. Especially the Ritz Beauty Shop.
People are always giving me things like these because they know I love local history and will preserve them for future generations. If you have any local pieces, especially from the Talcott, Lowell, Clayton, Pence Springs, Valley Heights and Riverside Rest vicinity that you would like to donate to my ever-growing collection, or that you would like to sell or would allow me to copy them, please email me at greenbrierantiques@gmail.com“
