Grocery Store in Murray.....

When I was a kid on the farm, my parents had little money and we got by just like all the other farm people. We grew our own vegetables, butchered to have beef and pork, milked cows, and went to this little store for groceries. It was a two aisle store where my mom would buy oatmeal, flour, sugar, spices, and other products that you just couldn't make or grow yourself. It was Tindal's Grocery, and there was another grocery on the other side of the railroad track but we never shopped there. My mom bought our pad of Red Chief lined paper there for school and our pencils. We sometimes splurged and bought 12 cent bread, sliced lunch meat, and cold cereal. At the wooden counter was a cardboard box full of bubble gum pieces and a cash register that didn't give you a receipt.
The town of Murray was established in 1868. It may have been larger than it is today, but it has always had a population of 6oo or 700 people. The railroad help to establish the town and the Morman Trail went through it on the East-West main street. I will share more about that history later. Many children died from chicken pox and 180 of all ages were buried at Mt. Pisgah northwest of Murray a few miles away from town in Union County.
The style of this building is typical for it's time and I have seen some stores just like this that had gasoline pumps that sat directly under that roof. It made the building tricky to walk in the front door but that is where they placed the pumps. The pumps were an afterthought as I know the buildings were not originally gas stations. The architectural structure can be seen all over the United States, typical of the 1800's. Out West they went up overnight when towns were being built.
This building of course closed when the newer large grocery stores were established in neighboring, larger towns, around the 1960s. The other grocery in town survived that and was still open until recently. I am not sure, but I think it has been closed. Miller's were one of the last that operated it.
Today, it says that old grocery building now sells livestock feed out of it and I do remember when they sold seed corn out of it. I am glad they are using it again as it had been abandoned for many years.
I told you, I could never do a wordless, Wednesday. Thanks for reading.......