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Throwback Thursday: Across from the Post Office
By Eric D. Tudor
We all know the Post Office on the corner of Adams and East Commercial. But what about the other corner, directly across the street by the railroad tracks? That spot has seen more change than most places downtown.
The story starts in 1869 when the Frisco Railroad arrived in Lebanon. Benton Cook moved his little blacksmith shop from “Old Town” up to Commercial Street, right in this area. By 1886, Sanborn Insurance Maps showed a wagon shop, a few open lots, and a small stove shop attached to one of several livery stables. In the early 1900s, a brick building went up to house Farmer’s Elevator, which sold Purina Chows.
As cars became more common in the 1910s and 1920s, the brick building became a Ford dealership. That ended when a fire swept through the block. By the 1940s, Kroger Grocery stood on the site. Across the street, the Rice Stix building was bustling, and many women working there during World War II would shop at Kroger or grab lunch at the deli counter. Kroger lasted more than a decade before fire struck again. As historian Glenn Raef once said, “I swear that corner burned more than any other in all of Lebanon.” Steam engine embers from the Frisco trains often set rooftops ablaze.
In the 1950s, the lot became Hooker’s Garage, owned by the Hooker family, offering full tire, oil, and repair service. The late 1970s and 1980s brought Ted’s Jewelry and Scarborough Flowers, until another fire in 1984—this one caused by ice storm damage to exterior wiring—destroyed the building. That night, my fiancée Sarah (Bradley) and her father, Bradford Scott Bradley, stood guard over their business, Falcon Floor Covering, to protect it from drifting embers.
By the 1990s, Goss Meat & Deli operated just a few steps closer to Jefferson and Commercial, with an apartment upstairs where our niece Trish and later her husband Chad Sherrer lived. My wife and I helped renovate that apartment, which was owned by the Goss family. Today, that building is home to The Flower Market.
In the 2000s, Danny and April True purchased the corner lot along with the building housing The Flower Market. After the 1980s fire, True Construction had built the current brick structure that now holds multiple offices and businesses.
