16)  Stores and Businesses

Downtown Stores in the 1920s and 1930s

(Libby Frazier)

I do remember some of the stores that we used to have in Granville.  The S&E Morrow was sort of like a general dry goods store.  And we would go get all our school supplies there.  They would have them all in packets for us for the different grades.  And they had wallpaper on the second floor.

Then there was Patsy Cordon’s Restaurant.  It was on the north side of the main block of stores, [ about where Taylor's Drug Store used to be.]  After the depression then they served beer.  We weren’t allowed to walk on the sidewalk close to that restaurant.  We had to walk out closer to the street if we passed it.  He was crippled and after the restaurant failed, he had a newsstand on the corner

Then there was Case's Candy Kitchen.  It was on the north side of Broadway where the Aladdin is today.  They made their own ice cream.

And we had two shoe repair shops: one where Blackstone is now, was D.E. Jones Shoe Repair and down on the corner where the real estate office is was Ernest Welsh’s Shoe Repair.

We had a lot of grocery stores in town.  Perry’s Grocery.  Then Welsh’s Grocery. Carl Welsh bought it out; and Fullers and the Red & White, and Huffman’s.  They all had their own meat market, and they always delivered.  And if you weren’t home, they would just go ahead and put things in your kitchen for you.  And you would pay your grocery bill at the end of the month.  Everything was charged.  And our milk was delivered to our house and put on the doorstep in glass bottles.

We had a bakeries in town too, the Johnson’s Bakery, where Fuller’s went in.  And across the street we had Futerer’s Bakery.

And there was originally a Pruney Jordan’s Restaurant, which was quite a hang out for the college students.  And under the Opera House, there was the Grill Moderne.  Pruney Jordan's burned down.  Well, Pruney Jordan's and that whole block burned.  It was in the 1920s because my mother wouldn’t let me go.  There was a fire in 1927, I think.

Barber Shops in the 1930s

(Ed Deeds)

There were three barber shops in town in the 1930s.  Pete Johnson had the barber shop underneath the front of Gregory’s Hardware Store.  Ellington and Roberts had a shop in the place where the Historical Society is now.  And there was another one on a little alley off the parking lot that is behind all the stores on Broadway.  I remember that a haircut was twenty-five cents and I was sort of shocked when it went up to forty cents.  And the barbers always had some sort of tiger stuff, a kind of aftershave perfume they’d put on you.  And barbershops would always have a copy of the Police Gazette, if you wanted to see these women in bloomers or something like that.  I mean that was really daring stuff!

Gregory’s Hardware

(Ed Deeds)

One of the main businesses in town was the Gregory Hardware.  Before that it was called Horner’s Hardware.  When Mike Gregory (who was a football hero at Denison) married one of the Horner daughters, it became Gregory’s Hardware.  And that was a place where you could get anything you wanted.  It had a basement and several stories up above.  In the basement underneath the front, there was a barbershop.

Gregory’s Hardware, Toys &Lawn Equipment

(Rob Drake)

Where Taylor’s has just built their new drug store was the Gregory Hardware store, which had been the Granville Hotel at one time probably 1870’s or 80’s.  But Gregory Hardware was a big three-story building.  At one time it had been three separate storefronts and the Gregory family had taken over the whole thing.  There was one part of it that sold hardware, there was one in the middle that sold toys and there was one that sold lawn equipment.  My brother and I were really impressed at being able to walk down to a toy store.  That was a luxury we had never had living in sort of a suburban setting in Austin, Texas -- being able to walk to a toy store.  And we were able to walk down to Taylor’s to get an ice cream cone.  So we thought that was pretty fun.

Gregory’s – Always a Self-Service Hardware Store

(Sam Schnaidt)

Gregory’s Hardware was just a great institution, especially the toy store there.  We’d go in there all the time.  The hardware store was the big part, then the toy store was next to it.  Then Addie Slack’s insurance agency was in the little room next to that and over in the corner, against Prospect Street, was what they called the Corner Store, which was an appliance store of Gregory’s. 

One thing that I thought was real interesting was that when Mike Gregory died, his son Dick took over the store.  Now Dick was just out of college, and he sure came in with a lot of new ideas.  One thing he decided to do was to make the hardware store a self-service store.  So he changed everything around.  The crazy part was, the hardware store was a self-service store before he ever started because everybody in Granville knew where everything was.  If I wanted to go get nails to make a soapbox derby, I went back to the nail bin.  I put the nails in the bag.  I told him I got this many nails and they told me it was thirteen cents.  I mean everybody knew where everything was.  It was totally a self-serve hardware store.  So Dick totally rearranges the whole store to make it look like a new self-serve hardware store . . .  and you couldn’t find anything. 

Downtown Businesses in the 1960s

(Rob Drake)

Certainly the mix of what is downtown has changed.  When we came to Granville, Granville was much more of a self-contained community than it is today.  In the Broadway business block on the north side there were one, two, three, four grocery stores.  There was a shoe repair shop on the corner with the window all full of shoes and there was a photographer.  There were several things that are still there -- Cunard’s, Taylor’s, the Aladdin, the James Store.  But the grocery stores have gone.  There certainly wasn’t a bar.  Granville was dry then and so, there certainly would not have been anything like Brews. 

Downtown Granville Remains Much the Same

(Dave Rutledge)

Even though the individual businesses have changed in downtown Granville, the buildings have not changed other than the new Taylor’s Drugstore.  If you look at that one block between Prospect and Main, there really hasn’t been a lot of changes other than the Opera House burning down.  When I was young, the Opera House was a neat little clothing store where I bought clothes.  And I went to movies there at the theater above the clothing store.

Everybody Drove a Chevrolet

(Rob Drake)

Granville being a little more self-contained, it made people shop downtown much more.  There was a Chevrolet dealership in town.  It was remarkable.  It seemed to us everybody in Granville drove a Chevrolet.  I’m sure they didn’t, but it sure seemed like they did.  But down where the Elm’s Pizza is now, that was Hud’s Chevrolet.  Everybody drove a Chevrolet from Hud’s.

Five Gas Stations in Granville in the 1960s

(Rob Drake)

When we came to Granville, there were one, two, three…there were four gasoline stations inside the village itself and one immediately outside the village.  At the point of Broadway and College, which is now a tire store, that was a gas station.  There was a Sohio station where the Parnassus Village Offices are now located.  Where the First National Bank is, at this end was a Pure Oil Station.  Where First National Bank now is, was a Marathon Station.  Where that new food store [ Firchau's – previously the Village Coffee Shop and before that the Tole House ] on North Prospect, and that was a Sinclair Station and down where the Lutheran Church is was a Sunoco Station.

It is amazing now the way people fuss and carry-on about commerce in Granville.  I like telling people there were 5 gas stations and a bowling alley and all.  And somehow Granville survived.  Granville was certainly not as pristine then as it is now and it got along just fine not being as pristine.  It didn’t hurt it a bit.

Clean Fill and the Granville Mill

(Fred Abraham)

My dad and three other guys bought the original mill back in 1953.  Four years later, they (the other two guys) wanted out and they bought out but Dad’s hung in there and you see what it is now.  Then my dad bought this property [ where Abe's Body Shop is today ] in 1958 I think it was or 1961.  He bought this property for $12,000 and people just thought he was absolutely out of his mind.

This was all damp.  All damp.  It all had to be filled in.  Dad put a sign out there for clean fill.  And, you know, the state, when they cleaned out roadways or this, that or another, would dump it here.

And what we’re sitting on right now [ at Abe’s Body Shop ] is about 18 feet of fill.  Right now we’re actually sitting on Gregory Hardware!  Right here is Gregory Hardware!  This building is on it.  And the NAPA store up there is sitting on the bridge from Route 16, when they rebuilt it, and that whole bridge is all crumbled up, over there underneath the NAPA store.  And they just hit some of it when they remodeled the Certified Station.

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