Remember When??? – GrandDaddy’s Store

Farmer’s Supply Company Warehouse

The End of an Era

Before it was Butt’s Antiques, the old warehouse was The House of Oak Furniture and prior to that it was Farmer’s Supply Company. As of last week, the warehouse that housed those businesses is no longer a landmark on Highway 19-129 South. The warehouse, which was located on property owned by the Wayne Colwell Family, was demolished by Darren Rowan, owner of Regional Disposal Services. The Colwell Family has no immediate plans for the property.

As with many buildings in Union County, people pass by them without knowing the history of the building. This warehouse was rich with history and had seen thousands of people come through its doors. Rarely a day went by where at least two or three men were not sitting on the front porch discussing ‘business’.

In 1945, Frank E. Colwell, father of Wayne Colwell, sold one-half acre from his “homeplace” property to Roy Lorton of Florida for $1.00 and “valuable consideration”. Mr. Lorton built the warehouse and the two men opened Farmer’s Supply Company. Mr. Colwell and Mr. Lorton purchased produce from local farmers and hauled it to the Farmer’s Market in Atlanta. Soon, they added feed, seed and fertilizers to the stock of merchandise sold out of the warehouse. In 1949, Frank bought Roy’s share of the business, at which time he added groceries to the items that he sold. Frank Colwell operated Farmer’s Supply Company until 1980 when he retired.

Just days before the demolition of the warehouse began, I took some time to walk back into the place that played a part in defining who Frank Colwell was and the memories came flooding back as the smell of feed and wood floors overtook me.

Summer days spent at the warehouse with my grandfather meant that my sister and I could “play” store. The warehouse is where we learned to “make change”— something most people under the age of 40 or so cannot do without the aid of a calculator. We used a cash register that had a lever you pulled when you wanted to record the amount of an item. It added and subtracted but didn’t do much more than that. Granddaddy had a set of scales that he used to weigh the feed and fertilizer on. These were the largest scales I had ever seen…. the type that you added metal weights to in order to balance the scales. I remember the “drink machine” which really was just a very large chest refrigerator, much like those that are used today to store ice cream and other frozen items at the grocery store. Bottles of Coca Cola, grape and orange Nehi, RC cola, Pepsi Cola and other soft drinks were always in stock at Farmer’s Supply Company. There was always a ring of hoop cheddar cheese on the counter as well as a huge glass jar full of penny bubblegum. The ice cream freezer held an unending supply of Orange Push Ups and Fudgesicles and close by on a shelf were Moon Pies and Lance’s Pecan Pies. In those days brown paper bags were used to bag groceries and more often than not my granddaddy would carry the groceries out to the car for the women and the older folks that shopped with him. Between the warehouse and Frank and Eula’s home stood the outhouse which got it’s fair share of use over the 60 years that it stood in that location.

As I stood in the warehouse listening to the traffic on Hwy 129, I thought about how seldom in my childhood days we heard cars whizzing by on the highway. Certainly there were fewer cars then, but I think that people did not live their lives in such a hurry in those days. Folks took time to stop and visit a while at the store on their way to or from town. As I wiped away my tears, locked the door and left the warehouse for the final time, I was certainly glad that I had taken the time to stop and allow myself a visit in Granddaddy’s store one more time.