RonM
There used to be quite a few small grocery stores scattered around in the neighborhoods. I couldn’t hazard a guess why each of them were in business, though it seemed there were a lot of small, family owned businesses in those days. Even the chain stores were rather small like A&P, Safeway and Sears & Roebuck. When I was growing up my mom sent me to George’s on the SE corner of Hinds and 40th. The building is still there, though a private residence today. My, how small it seems today! The grocery was on the ground floor and George lived upstairs. He had a cash register, but he’d add up your purchase on butcher paper and enter the total on the register. I had to bring home his calculations along with the change. There was another store on 42nd, I think just west of Tibbits Methodist Church. I remember the store on Charlestown at the foot of the steep hill. We used to try to slide down that hill on our sleds when I was a kid. They sometimes put up barricades to keep us off, but when they left we merely moved them out of the way.
The city wasn’t very thoughtful of us kids. The water department owned the property west of the water tower on Charlestown (as they do today), but planted thorn bushes in the middle to discourage us from playing there. We merely played around the bushes, but had a devil of a time if a ball went into the bushes. The old water tower was built there in about 1925. In later years there were some noticeable dents on its west side, about 2/3rds up. I’ve been amused over the years of all the theories voiced about how they got there. Not even the current water department knew before they rebuilt it (none of them are old enough and they must not have made note of it at the time). It was actually struck by lightning in about 1939 and prompted the installation of its first lightning rod.