By FULLER ROYAL

Other than what I could recall as a 7 or 8-year-old, there wasn’t a whole lot I remembered about the “glory” days of downtown Whiteville.

That was the case until some slides made available to me by John McNeill jarred some of my memories.

I have been enthralled this year by the images taken by Mabel Prevatte, especially her 1956 project when she took the time to visit nearly every store and business in downtown Whiteville and photograph not only the exteriors but the merchants and key employees inside as well.

There was some familiarity for me. I remember most of those stores and the people.

Two weeks ago, with McNeill’s permission, downtown photographer Bill White provided me a DVD copy of McNeill’s scanned color slides from his days as Scoutmaster of Troop 513 – the 1960s. They’re for another project I am working on.

Mixed in with those images were dozens of shots taken of downtown Whiteville, circa 1966.

I was in hog heaven. Suddenly, I remembered stores and events from those days. I now had a visual connection, which literally unlocked memories long since stowed away.

Downtown Whiteville’s last great hurrah – as was the case in most towns – was during the 1960s.

We like to blame Wal-mart for the demise of small town America – and they have certainly played a role in the most recent decades – but the truth is, we’re all to blame.

We have become a nation obsessed with next-day delivery, ultra-convenient drive-throughs, high-speed information, must-have-it-now gadgets, don’t bother-to-repair-it-disposables, parking spaces next to the main entrance, instant messaging, and text messaging.

We are a culture of strip malls and indoor malls.

In the 1960s and the half century that preceded it, downtown was the center of day-to-day living. Everything you needed could be taken care of downtown.

A trip downtown could mean a dozen different things.

The doctors were downtown. I remember visits to Dr. A.G. Floyd’s or Dr. Joe Wyche’s offices for checkups. Need medicine? It was within two blocks at Simmons, McNeill’s, Guiton’s or Columbus Drug Store.

Hungry? You could visit the Southern Kitchen, Ward’s Grill or the New York Restaurant for breakfast, lunch or supper.

There was a studio photographer – Leslie Baldwin – above Guiton’s. There were two movie theaters – the Columbus and the Madison.
Needed gas? No problem.

Believe it or not, from the courthouse to the intersection of Lee, Franklin and Madison streets, there were 12 full-service stations gas stations – including Esso, Shell, Pure, Etna, Gulf, Texaco, Sinclair and Amoco.

There were two hotels – the New Columbus and the Heart of Whiteville Motor Inn.

There were auto parts stores, clothing stores and jewelry stores.

You could pay your electric, water and phone bills downtown.

You could purchase a soft drink at 25 different places – bottled or fountain.

There were automobile dealers and a stable or two if you still needed a mule.

There were shoe stores and stores where shoes could be repaired. There were stores that could repair electrical appliances and actually fix a television.

There were furniture stores, insurance stores and tire stores. You could find sporting goods, bicycles and toys.

Freight could come in by rail or by bus a mere two blocks apart. There were small grocery stores, each with a specialty. There were larger grocery stores. There was a butcher shop.

City Hall was there as well as the police, fire and then newly formed rescue departments.

There were vendors hawking boiled peanuts and snow cones.

Trains would come through and farmers would be in town selling tobacco and spending that money.

Downtown, there were chain department stores like Roses, Belk and Woods Five-and-Dime. There were banks and a coal yard. Until 1965, The News Reporter was in the heart of downtown.

And there were tobacco warehouses everywhere with that aroma of tobacco that would linger for months after the market had closed for the year.

The post office was downtown as were several florists. There were car dealerships.

What original businesses survive in their original locations? Only a handful and they include Mann’s, Kramer’s, Whiteville Florist, Ward’s Grill, Moskow’s, Collier’s Jewelers and Collier T.V. & Appliance (formerly Collier & Yow.)

So when did it begin to change? When we, as Americans, grew tired of walking and decided we no longer needed to exercise.

We wanted convenience. We wanted big box stores with thousands of items crammed on the shelves. We wanted huge grocery stores with every kind of food available.

We no longer wanted to get out of our cars and walk into a restaurant to sit down and speak to others.

The first real strip mall we had was Whiteville Plaza and it took Roses out of downtown. Doctors began setting up their offices closer to the hospital. Small-town pharmacists couldn’t compete with the conglomerates.

Kmart came along and spelled doom for Roses. Wal-mart came along and sped the demise of Kmart.

It’s hard to believe that with so many people driving, we now have fewer service stations than ever before.

All of the little mom-and-pop establishments fell by the wayside, no longer able to support the owners.

It’s a real shame.

My girls are so jealous of my childhood. They hear the stories of how we could freely ride our bikes all over town without fear of crime. We could leave our bikes parked in front of McNeill’s Drug Store, a dozen of us at a time, while we were inside.

The business community was connected to each other in a way that chambers of commerce can only dream of today. All of the businessmen during the day would see each other in church and at the nighttime civic clubs – Rotary, Lions, Optimists, Civitans, Kiwanis and the Jaycees.

I am amazed at how crowded the towns used to be and what an important daily event it was to be downtown. People saw each other and actually communicated.

No matter where you went, you saw people you knew and who knew you.

It was casual. It was the real Mayberry. There was nothing finer that to walk down Madison Street with a drugstore milkshake in one hand and a Mrs. Bright’s ham and cheese sandwich in the other. Or the combination of a 10-ounce SunDrop and a bag of boiled peanuts.

Will our downtowns ever return to those grand years?

Perhaps when gas prices hit $10, people will learn that stores within walking distance are to their advantage and will make a comeback.

I hope that someone, somehow, will restore magic to all of our small towns.

It would be a real shame if my generation is the last to have even an inkling of what downtowns used to be.

It will take someone with vision to turn things around. It will take someone willing to work with a new generation of business owners. It will take some optimism, money and elbow grease.

It will take landlords who can see past the ends of their noses and have some sense of community pride and decency.

Restoration of the Vineland Station Depot is a terrific start.

I hope that someday, downtown Whiteville will again look like those wonderful photographs made during the 1930s and 1940s.

Now, wouldn’t that be something to talk about? Pass me some of those boiled peanuts, will ya?