![]() ![]() Cooper to Short’s Grocery & Market at 637 S. Fine foods at low prices.” In the 1940s midtowners could walk to Charlie Adams Grocery & Market at 2127 Madison, where Overton Square is now to Hellum Brothers at 938 S. The telephone book advertised Leadway as “Dedicated to service to customers. Leadway was a cooperative of small, “Locally Owned” stores. Bellevue at 2129 Central Ave on the corner at Cooper St, home for years of the former Toad Hall Antiques store and at 237 Barksdale St, south of Union Ave near Linden. There were local stores in midtown at 622 S. Though Piggly Wiggly would eventually dominate the grocery store landscape, the chain started small. Among others, midtowners could count on grocers in their neighborhood that included Leadway Food Stores and WeOna grocers, as well as smaller, neighborhood Piggly Wiggly stores. In Midtown Memphis, quite a few family-owned or small-chain “cooperative” stores dotted the map for generations. But now these little gems are rare today’s economics just don’t make them sustainable. And so merchants opened stores in their own neighborhoods, and that’s where they drew their customers.”Ī few neighborhood stores still exist here in the Mid-South, including High Point Grocery in High Point Terrace. There was a very practical reason for that: In the first half of the 1900s, we employed a very novel means of transportation when we decided to go shopping: We walked. Memphis Magazine’s Ask Vance recalls that “You have to realize that years ago, before national chains took over the grocery industry here, it was commonplace to have small, family-owned and operated groceries, markets, and other stores scattered along the residential streets of this city. However, throughout the 1920s and through the ’60s, little and lesser-known neighborhood grocery stores could be found everywhere before the big chains took over the landscape. When we think of the gold standard for the grocery store in the Mid-South, we of course think first of the chain of Piggly-Wiggly stores founded in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. Mythic because, in most cities, they exist only in our minds.” Ah, I love feeling nostalgic.“The corner store has a mythic place in our view of American cities. Here is a glimpse of an old Piggly Wiggly sign. Nowadays you can find people wearing Piggly Wiggly gear, and it makes me wonder, do they know about Clarence Saunders and what he did for the grocery store? We will share some of our pictures of the Pink Palace later this week as we continue with Memphis in May. The Pink Palace in Memphis was designed to be the home of Clarence Saunders and is now a museum containing an exhibit of the first Piggy Wiggly. ![]() I wish that I was able to shop that first store and see the reactions of shocked little old ladies, but as we know it, the idea seemed to catch on. The first Piggly Wiggly opened in 1916 on Jefferson Street in Memphis permitted shoppers to use a cart, access items and did not require clerks to shop for you. These are definitely all things I come to expect when shopping now. ![]() Saunders and Piggly Wiggly also introduced refrigerated cases, checkout stands, created their own national brands, and priced every item in the store. ![]() Clarence Saunders, the founder of Piggly Wiggly revolutionized grocery shopping by allowing shoppers to help themselves, thus saving the store money and time. Not until recently and thanks to our fall trip did I even realize that Piggy Wiggly began its journey in Memphis, Tennessee. While visiting my sister for Thanksgiving I purchased a copy of West Side Story the movie, and exited into the small town. While I am certain that I visited and shopped in them as a child, I am only able to recall one visit in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. My parents always pointed out the Piggly Wiggly grocery stores on family trips to North Carolina, and as children, my sister and I would giggle in the back seat at the sound of the name. ![]()
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