Long ago on independence square (mounted, results, home)

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

I remember Sargent's and Jack Frost. I think Sargent's was at 51st and Blue Ridge, across the Methodist Church and Chapel School.

The one at 10205 Truman has me drawing blanks. Curt's Market was/is in that area but I don't think it was him.

One time in the late fifties, the Fleming Company, which serviced United Supers, invited all United Super employees to a free evening dinner at the RKO Missouri or Empire theater in Kansas City. I and the aforementioned Minton along with our girl friends went to the dinner expecting a nice sit down meal of some type. We were still in high school and we had never been to a dinner before--so we donned coat and tie while at the same time we were wondering how a dinner could be served in a theater.

When we arrived there were cold cuts, sliced bread, pickles, and potato chips spread out on tables in front of the huge Cinerama screen. Then you sat in a theater seat to eat. Afterwards, with everyone seated, the company provided their pitch about providing good customer service, etc.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

The one at 10205 Truman has me drawing blanks. Curt's Market was/is in that area but I don't think it was him.

Maywood US was just west of B&B Pharmacy on the south side. My F-I-L worked there in the late 1970s when Mel Waits owned the store. I don't recall what year it closed. Curt's is about a block west of that, and still in business.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

Maywood US was just west of B&B Pharmacy on the south side. My F-I-L worked there in the late 1970s when Mel Waits owned the store. I don't recall what year it closed. Curt's is about a block west of that, and still in business.

All right. I recall that name, now that you mention it. I recall a Mel Waits also.

Curt's was affiliated with Associated Grocers back in that time. As was Cascio's. I don't know if that company is still around or not.

[CaseyMO]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

All right. I recall that name, now that you mention it. I recall a Mel Waits also.

Curt's was affiliated with Associated Grocers back in that time. As was Cascio's. I don't know if that company is still around or not.

Interesting. I did not know Maywood United Supers was owned by Mel. Looks like all three of us knew Mel at one time or another.

[CaseyMO]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

The Ott & Mitchell funeral home handled Thomas Swope’s burial. Right now I am thinking that place is on south Noland Road but it has not always been there. I believe it moved there at least fifty years ago from another location—maybe the Englewood area?

The Swope mansion was opened as a spook house on Halloween nights when I was young, but I never went in there. The house was torn down in 1960.

The Ott & Mitchell Funeral Home was on North Main at this time. It was across the street from Cable Chevrolet. Attached is a picture of the funeral home. Attachment 125004

I hope I did that right.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by CaseyMO

The place behind C & J was Buck Rogers.

I think Buck Rogers was also just to the west of C&J on 23rd at one time.

There was one long building on the northwest corner of 23rd and Kiger that held Buck Rogers, another small shop, which was initially a laundromat, C&J, Brown's hardware, and a DX filling station with a one bay auto lift. There may have also been another shop west of Buck Rogers, also, as I have some vague remembrance of something being torn down on that end. This would have been around 1956, or so.

When C&J expanded, that is when Brown's hardware and the service station moved across Kiger and C&J expanded in both directions taking over all the space of the long building, Buck Rogers had to move.

His former auto repair space on the west became a C&J back room and the overhead garage door was then used by Fleming delivery trucks to unload on the 23rd Street side with everyone else going to the back of the building for deliveries.

John Brown owned both corners and he might have built the place behind C&J to compensate Buck Rogers for the grocery store expansion. The new building behind C&J probably had two to three times more space for auto repair.

The DX filling station on the east end of the building had a one stall service and repair space which had overhead doors on both the north and south end. That room became an auxiliary back room for C&J. The pop bottle sorting lean to attached behind C&J was torn down and bottle sorting moved to the auxiliary back room. Soda pop was also stored in that bay and other things also, perhaps seasonal stuff or overflow from the other back room.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

I think Buck Rogers was also just to the west of C&J on 23rd at one time.

There was one long building on the northwest corner of 23rd and Kiger that held Buck Rogers, another small shop, which was initially a laundromat, C&J, Brown's hardware, and a DX filling station with a one bay auto lift. There may have also been another shop west of Buck Rogers, also, as I have some vague remembrance of something being torn down on that end. This would have been around 1956, or so.

I definitely don't have a photo of that!

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by CaseyMO

The Ott & Mitchell Funeral Home was on North Main at this time. It was across the street from Cable Chevrolet. Attached is a picture of the funeral home. Attachment 125004

I hope I did that right.

I could not get the attachment to show a picture. It says "Invalid attachment specified." i am having a time getting my RAM to recognize a funeral home there, although I think MRG might have mentioned that site from looking in a city directory--or maybe I am thinking of the one that was across from the old Diamond Bowl location.

[WCHS'59]

Before C&J expanded it was a super market but a small one. In the rear of the building, there were three or four small stationary oblong windows in the back of the building that were at roof level--much too high to get to without a ladder. But they were big enough for someone to squeeze through. As I recall all the back door entrances were steel and were barred from the inside at closing.

Around 1955, at the time C&J was in the county, someone(s) pulled up in the middle of night at the back of the store and somehow got up to one of the windows, broke it out, and crawled into the store. The window they picked happened to be above a large air conditioner unit that was inside the building against the back wall. They crawled off the air conditioner unit and then jumped to the floor. They stole every cigarette carton they could find, emptied the meat case, and took all the change in the three cash drawers plus some other high value stuff that I cannot recall.

There was a door between the grocery and the hardware and they broke the glass in that door, entered the hardware, and took a lot of stuff from there, also. Then they vanished without a trace.

Clarence and Jerry had a policy of taking the bills out of the cash drawers at night and putting the cash into a small safe, leaving the till open with all the change left in. (Including 50 cent pieces which were in popular use at the time). Not much value but it was money.

As a result of this incursion, all of those small windows were bricked up. They also purchased a larger safe and would then take the cash drawers out entirely and lock them up overnight. I do not believe a burglar alarm was ever installed.

[CaseyMO]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

I could not get the attachment to show a picture. It says "Invalid attachment specified." i am having a time getting my RAM to recognize a funeral home there, although I think MRG might have mentioned that site from looking in a city directory--or maybe I am thinking of the one that was across from the old Diamond Bowl location.

How can I get photos into the message itself?