Downtown Frisco City: Then and Now

This rephotographic tour of Frisco City will cover as many buildings as possible of the downtown business area beginning on the south end, at the intersection of Central Avenue and Bowden St./Hwy 21, and examining the west side of Bowden St. toward the north end and former Frisco Theater. Then, beginning with J.J. McWilliams & Son at the intersection of Bowden St. and the Excel/Frisco Hwy., the tour of the east side of Bowden St. travels back south toward Central Avenue.

For many of these businesses, I can only estimate dates of their existences from ads and interviews. I hope at a future time to find concrete dates for the comings and goings of businesses from tax records and insurance maps. The interviews featured in this blog cover a period from about the 1940s to the 1960s, so information on the building and the numerous businesses that cycled through it is loosely confined to those decades. 

To start the "tour," select a building from the menu on the left.  

For now, welcome to Frisco City.

RC Cola, Hendrix Tractor

The first building on this stretch was the old RC Cola Bottling Company from the 1930s until the late 1970s.

 1968 Friscola yearbook ad 

  D&D Furniture offices November 2010  

Annie Laura Tatum, a long-time Frisco City resident, remembers a popular RC ad:

Lou Dunn, another Frisco City resident, names his favorite RC-Nehi beverage.

The adjacent building was occupied by Lee Motor Company from 1921 to at least 1940, then by Hendrix Tractor Company from the 1940s-late 1960s.

Lee Motor Company
1940

  Hendrix Tractor 1950 Crimson-White yearbook photo  

 D&D Furniture Factory Outlet November 2010 

 Hendrix Tractor 1957 Crimson and White yearbook ad 

 D&D Furniture Factory Outlet November 2010 

This strip of buildings now houses the main offices and showrooms of D&D Furniture Factory Outlet.

Admiral Byrd's station

The corner building on the southwest end of the downtown area functioned as a service station for a number of years. At one time it was owned by a man called "Admiral Byrd." He may or may not have actually been an admiral, according to interviewed residents, but he certainly had a commanding personality.

A former childhood employee of Admiral Byrd's, Tim Taylor, describes an experience he had (literally) acquitting two out-of-towners exposed to the Admiral's censure.

The corner building is now enclosed and is part of Ray's Hardware, one of the few businesses still open in the downtown area. Parts of the original walls of Admiral Byrd's station are still visible inside Ray's.

  Admiral Byrd's station 1957 Friscola yearbook ad 

Ray's Hardware 2010 

Ray's Hardware and Supply

The next building houses Ray's Hardware and Supply, which began in 1959 and is still in business today.

   1966 Friscola Yearbook ad   

  October 2010  

   Back door of "main building" May 1965   

  October 2010  

Ronnie Ray, son of founder Roy Ray, describes the growth of the store into adjacent buildings.

 Post-remodeling and eexpansion 1976 

   October 2010   

 Interior, late 1970s. Pictured from left to right are Roy Ray (father), Vince Ray, and Ronnie Ray. 

 October 2010 Ronnie Ray is the only surviving member of the trio. 

Ray names a few of the businesses the adjacent buildings housed prior to the hardware store's expansion.

A mid-1950s photograph shows Admiral Byrd's service station  to the left of the original Ray's Hardware building and the white-fronted "dime store" Ray mentions to the right: the Ben Franklin Store.

The two small buildings on the far side of the Ben Franklin Store are now 1) a storage facility for Ray's Hardware and 2) two hair-styling shops.

Through 51 years in operation, Ray's Hardware has had to change its lines of mercandise to adapt to the changing needs of more mobile, but still relatively rural, customers.

Ray's Hardware has long been a fixture on the northwest corner of town, and, by all indications, its prospects for remaining so seem bright.

People's Bank

An alley separates (and has always separated) the current Ray's Hardware buildings and style shops from the old People's Bank building.

People's Bank was established in Frisco City in 1914, when the town was still named Jones Mill. I have been unable to find picture of the building from this era, but it is obvious from the above photograph that even the alley's side was adorned with arched windows and doors.

Documents from the bank themselves reflect part of the town's history: its name changes. A blank check names the bank's location as "Roy, Alabama," and a 1925 check names the town "Jones Mills, Ala."

The bank building was remodeled between 1969 and 1970, and, in addition to a new facade, the bank gained the adjacent building, which had been a movie theater and then a Western Auto store in preceding decades (1940s, early 1950s-1969).

   1972 Friscola yearbook ad   

  November 2010  

By the mid-1980s, People's Bank had merged with United Bank and had moved to a new building just south of the downtown stretch of buildings.

The safe and tellers' desks are still inside the deteriorating building, which is now used for storage.

Western Auto

The building taken over by People's Bank in 1969 once housed Frisco City's first movie theater (1940s) and, from the early 1950s until 1969, the Western Auto Associate Store.


Theater

Annie Laura Tatum remembers going to the movie theater there in the early 1940s.

The steps Mrs. Tatum mentions still lead up to the building and are visible in the photograph below. No picture of the original theater has been yet located for this project.

November 2010

Western Auto

The Western Auto Associate Store hosted its grand opening in this building iin the mid-1950s.

   Grand Opening mid-1950s Photo by Max McAliley   

 November 2010 



Grand Opening mid-1950s
Photo by Max McAliley



Lou Dunn describes the store's varied merchandise lines, partially illustrated by the photographs below.

1959 Crimson and White yearbook ad

 A second ad from 1959 Crimson and White yearbook

Liles Building

The next building is the Liles Building, which housed Roy Hardware from at least the 1930s to the 1960s.




Verlie M. Sawyer stands in front of Roy Hardware in the late 1930s.
Photo courtesy of Ginny Sims Hudson



 The "Furniture" end of Roy Hardware can be seen here in the early 1950s. Photo by Max McAliley 

 November 2010 

 Jimmy and Fredia Tatum (and briefly Ronnie Ray) describe the store below.

Lou Dunn remembers a purchase he made at Roy Hardware in the mid-1950s.

For a short while in 2009 and 2010, the Liles building housed the Frisco Family Fun Center, an limited arcade game venue. It is now vacant again.

Eddins General Merchandise, Byrd's Sundry Store

The decaying building adjacent to the Liles Building housed many different businesses.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the W.R. Eddins General Merchandise store was located there.

Late 1930s
Photo courtesy of Ginny Sims Hudson

From the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, the building was home to Byrd's Sundry Store and The Diner Cafe.

 Early 1950s photo by Max McAliley 

 November 2010 

1948 Crimson-White yearbook ad



At some time during the 1950s, the building supposedly housed a pool hall, but it has been difficult to locate information about or photographs of this era in the building's history.

Also, at an undetermined time, Tatum Furniture used the building for a discount retail store. That store's name remains on the windows of the building.


Today, the building is only a shell of what it once was.

November 2010

   

  

   

Hotel

Godwin's Hotel was one of two downtown hotels in Frisco City's heyday (the other was in an old two-story house, the McMillan home).

The hotel building has 27 rooms upstairs, with about 4 bathrooms, according to current building owner Jimmy Goram, who repaired the roof of the building in 2005. Until 2004, when Hurricane Ivan damaged the roof, people had been renting rooms upstairs, though the hotel had long been closed.

The hotel had been in operation at least since the late 1930s, when the picture below was taken.

A cafe inside was called Jaye's Cafe and seems to have been in existence during the Depression years and into the early 1950s. An interview with Jimmy Goram revealed stories about Jaye's regionally-acclaimed 10-cents-per-gallon soup.

  1965 Friscola yearbook photo The picture appears to have actually been taken in around 1950.  

 October 2010 

From about the early 1950s until the mid-1970s, the building housed Godwin's Hotel and Cafe.

 1954 Crimson and White yearbook ad 

 1952 Crimson and White yearbook ad 

Lou Dunn, a Frisco Ciy resident, describes the building.

Th building is now used for storage.

Jitney Jungle, M&M Supermarket, Oscar's Video Rental

The building on the north side of the hotel housed two different grocery stores at different times from the 1940s to the 1970s: a Jitney Jungle and M&M Super Market/Frisco Supermarket.

A mid-1950s photo shows the building as M&M Supermarket.

 Mid-1950s photo "West Side Bowden St.-Frisco City, Ala." Courtesy of Dot Sims 

 November 2010 

 M&M Supermarket 1959 Crimson and White yearbook ad 

 M&M Supermarket 1959 Crimson and White yearbook ad 

Though under the same ownership, the store advertised as Frisco Supermarket in 1962:

1962 Friscola yearbook ad

The last business to occupy the building was Oscar's Video Rental, which closed between the late 1990s and early 2000s.