Thursday Afternoons Were A Great Time To Explore Downtown Crossville
Looking south on Main Street, sometime in the 1960s.
I loved Thursday afternoons when I was growing up, in the 1960s. That’s when my mom got her hair “fixed” — styled, I guess you’d call it — in town, downtown Crossville that is. My sister and I would go with her and we were allowed to go around town by ourselves, as long as we stayed fairly close. “Close” still meant there was still plenty for us to do.
The beauty shop — the salon — was tucked in the side of the building that housed Thurman’s and faced 5th Street. Cora Lee Dykes owned the shop where my mom got her hair done by her longtime friend Becky (Burnett) Richards. It took a couple of hours for my mom to go through the process of a wash, roll, dry and comb out/tease — a lot of time for a couple of kids to kill.
Mid-to-late 1960s downtown Crossville was different than today. Highway 127 still rolls through and becomes Main Street, and most of the blocks look the same, but it’s different. The retail mix is way different. You could take care of a lot of business in downtown Crossville in those days. You could go to the doctor or visit a lawyer or an accountant, not to mention take care of any county business you might have at the courthouse. You could place a classified ad or renew your subscription at the Chronicle. You could do your banking and go to the post office. You could get you hair cut (or fixed).
You could do a lot of shopping on Main Street — clothes, shoes, jewelry, hardware, groceries, furniture, toiletries and personal items — you could have your car filled up with gas or serviced, or even buy a new one. You could go to a movie. If all that made you tired, there were a number of coffee shops and diners, and a hotel if you were just dog tired. Downtown Crossville was a one-stop shop.
The first place I’d go on a Thursday afternoon was across 5th Street to Mitchell’s (still operating today — Bob Mitchell just recently passed away) where I’d stand and read funny books — comics — for a while. I liked comics like Archie and Richie Rich — I never much cared for the superhero books, although I did like Sgt. Rock, the grizzled soldier fighting his way across North Africa and Europe in World War II. The funny books were on a circular rack just inside the side door, the one facing 5th Street. If I had enough money I’d get a milk shake or something from the fountain, but I didn't always have enough money.
After Mitchell’s I’d walk down Main Street towards the courthouse, but that wasn’t my destination. On the corner of 4th and Main were the dime stores. Lay 5&10 (Lay’s, we called it) and Ben Franklin faced off across Main Street. Lay’s was more modern, as I remember it, while Ben Franklin had an old-fashioned feel, even then. But both had all kinds of inexpensive items, including toys and school supplies, which interested me greatly.
Both had candy displays near the front — a great number of my purchases in those days involved “a dime’s worth” of red hots (my favorite then) or chocolate of some kind that the lady behind the counter would measure out and put in a small white bag. A dime’s worth meant literally 10 cents. You could buy any amount, down to a penny’s worth. I loved the candy counters.
Sometimes I’d walk through Laminack’s Hardware store but not often — I remember there was a sticker on the front door that read “When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns.” I grew up with guns and they were a pretty big part of my life even then, but I can remember thinking about that sign every time I walked past. Mostly, though, I was walking back toward 5th Street and Brewer’s Department Store, on the corner of 5th and Main. My grandmother Elizabeth Graham — Granny Graham — worked upstairs there as a retail clerk and I liked to visit her. She was always happy to see me and would spend some time talking and catching up with me.
Sometimes my mom would be done by then and be ready to go, sometimes not. I’d hang around, bored, until she was done. The shop had several of those hair dryers that were built into chairs — the dryer was a dome-like contraption at the end of an articulating arm that was attached to the top of the chair. You’d sit in the chair and pull the dome (the opening was big enough to cover hair in rollers) over the top of your head and control the heat and time from dials on the top of the chair. I’d fool around with the dryer chairs as much as I thought I could get away with.
I looked forward to after the beauty shop because we usually went to the grocery store and I always liked going to the grocery store. We shopped at either Cooper and Martin or Kroger over on the Truck Route — called by the more formal West Avenue these days. My sister reminded me that we usually had hamburgers for supper on Thursdays, probably because burgers were a relatively simple dinner. I remember now, and that was another reason Thursdays were so much fun.
By the early 1970s, certainly, the move to shopping centers on the north side of town had begun. Woodmere Mall and Cumberland Plaza were among the first, and the opening of the four-lane 127 to the interstate set the stage for what we have today. Big-box stores and changing shopping habits contributed to the demise of downtown as retail centers, just as they have downtowns across the country.
Thursdays are still special even though I do nothing now to distinguish them so. Maybe it’s the promise and possibilities of things to come — of Friday and the weekend. Or maybe it’s just the warm glow of nostalgia that keeps Thursday gentle on my mind.
rpdgraham@gmail.com