Author: Vance Lauderdale

At first glance, this somewhat grainy image appears to be a rare photo of the Lauderdale Mansion. But a close look reveals this building has a nice tile roof, and our mansion’s roof has been covered with flattened-out beer cans since at least 1956. No, this is the Fargason Mansion, and out of all the grand buildings demolished in Memphis, this one suffered a worse fate than most.

In the early 1900s, John T. Fargason amassed a fortune in the wholesale grocery business. A 1903 telephone directory advertisement for the J.T. Fargason Company, located at 115 South Front Street, notified customers that the firm offered “fancy and staple groceries, cigars, and tobacco” and was the sole distributor of Omega “Highest Patent” Flour, Santee Syrup, Heekins & Company roasted coffee, and even “Zebra and Whale” brand axle grease. That’s the kind I used on my hair, when I was a teenager, I recall. Good stuff!

Fargason had this monumental stone residence at 1318 Lamar built around 1905. (The architect’s name, along with other details about the grand home, has been lost to history, I’m afraid.) The Fargason family, prominent in Memphis social circles, lived and entertained here for three decades. In the mid-1930s, however, they sold the property. The next owner lived there only two years, then the old house stood vacant for several years.

In 1940, Phi Rho Sigma, a medical fraternity at the University of Tennessee, turned the home into its chapter house, thus beginning its inevitable decline. The fraternity, unable to maintain the mansion, moved out in the late 1950s, and again the home stood empty for several years.

In 1960, bulldozers pulled down the once-grand home. The Howard Johnson chain built a 145-room high-rise hotel on the spacious grounds, which became the Coach and Four Motor Lodge in the late 1970s. The property closed, and the derelict building remained a Midtown eyesore before it was finally demolished. Today the site is a vacant lot.

For more than 60 years, a ramshackle fruit stand — just bare wooden shelves protected by a striped canvas awning — stood on the northeast corner of Main and Beale, enduring heat and humidity in the summer, sleet and hail in the winter, and rain throughout the seasons. Tony’s Fruit Stand, as the little place was called, became a Memphis institution, where businessmen and -women would pick up apples, bananas, chewing gum, cigarettes, soft drinks, and candy on their way to work. Then one day, all it took was a piece of paper to knock it down.

An Italian truck farmer named Tony Bova opened his little stand in 1905. I’ve seen photos that show it was originally located in Court Square, but then he moved to Beale Street, renting space from the owner of the building behind him. The overhead sign spelled his name “Toney” but since he had it painted for free, so the story goes, he didn’t bother to change it.

Bova died in 1954, and his nephew, Joe Cianciola (that’s him in the photo above), who had begun working at the stand when he was just 11, took over the business. “A lot of people call me Tony,” he once told a reporter, “and that’s all right.”

Brothers Arnold and Walter Klyce opened Memphis’ only Studebaker dealership on South Cleveland in 1945. Newspapers praised the building’s clean design, created by Memphis architect Zeno Yeates, and proclaimed it “one of the most modern and attractive dealerships in the South.”

This photo, taken in 1950, shows a pair of what appear to be 1949 Studebaker Commander models parked at the curb (the gentlemen in the photo were not identified). These two cars probably weren’t sold to customers, since each one has the company name and address painted rather prominently on the doors, along with with catchy slogan, “They’re Nice at Klyce.”

Nowadays, Memphians in search of a new or used car have their choice of about a billion vehicles for sale on Covington Pike, or they can visit other fine dealerships on Stage Road, Poplar, Mt. Moriah, Mendenhall, and other locations throughout the county. But in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Union Avenue was Automobile Row, and one of the nicest establishments along that row was Douthit-Sanchez Pontiac.

Troy Douthit and Belmont Sanchez must have been terrific businessmen. Just a few months after they opened their automobile dealership at 1011 Union, America was thrust into World War II. Not many people seem aware of this, but you simply could not purchase a brand-new car from 1942 through 1945 in this country, as every aspect of Detroit car production was diverted to produce tanks, bombers, and other equipment needed for the war effort.

In the meantime, Douthit-Sanchez managed to survive by selling used vehicles, and by 1956, when this photo was taken of their elaborate showroom, not only were they bragging in their ads that they were “Memphis’ Oldest Pontiac Dealer,” but — according to the huge signs painted in the window — they were even able to give away a FREE car to customers who won the “Lucky Key” contest.

Last week, I posted a photo of a fine-looking old Pure Oil Station, and invited readers to guess the location (see the previous post). After some of you placed it all over town — and even as far away as Collierville — I’m glad to say that the mystery has finally been solved. Robert Stacey and WREG meteorologist Todd Demers determined that this building was once located at the southwest corner of Madison and McLean — pretty much where the patio for Neil’s stands today. I’ve enclosed a recent photo of that corner, so you can get a then-and-now feel. And yes, those tracks in the foreground carried the streetcars down Madison, then south on Cooper and east on Young to the Fairgrounds.

I haven’t been able to dig up much information on this establishment, except to determine that in the late 1930s and early 1940s it was called the Ben-Jep Tire and Battery Company. Old telephone books list the company president as James Hoyle and the vice-president as Thad P. Hicks, so I don’t have the slightest idea who Ben or “Jep” were. Does anyone?

Study this picture very carefully (click on it to enlarge the image), because I want to see if you can solve a mystery.

Those half-dozen of you who read this blog, or my column in Memphis magazine, on a regular basis know that I have recently talked about a couple of old Pure Oil Stations in Memphis. One was on Madison; the other on South Front Street. Both were built in the 1930s in the company’s distinctive “English Cottage” style. You should also know, if you had been paying attention, that the Lauderdale Library recently purchased the photo archives of all the Pure Oil Stations erected in Memphis from the 1930s through the 1960s.

So what I want to know is: Where was this station?

You can see that it’s the same “cottage” style architecture, but it’s considerably larger than the other Pure stations I’ve discussed. For one thing, it has TWO garage bays instead of one, and it has old “clock-face” gas pumps on two sides of the station, instead of just one grouping in the front. There is no overhead canopy, like the station on Madison. Look very closely at the photo, and you’ll see that someone has inked in lines around the window and door at the far right, and they also put three “X’s” across the pumps in front — possibly indicating changes to the existing building.

Other clues: a large two-story house in the background, and — most intriguing of all — some kind of railroad or trolley tracks in the foreground.

This much I’ll tell you. On the back of the photo is a scribbled notation: “Constructed March 1935.” There’s also the address. So yes, I know where this place is.

But the question is: Do you?

These days, many companies prefer to carry generic names like Costco, Super D, and Rite-Aid, but for almost four decades, one of the largest drugstore chains in Memphis went by the somewhat dry name of Doughty-Robinson.

In 1923, two pharmacists — Lorenzo Doughty and Andrew Robinson — opened their brand-new “prescription druggists” firm at 1083 Union. Back in the days when the telephone company assigned prefixes to phone numbers (Mutual, Fairfax, etc.), that first drug store got an appropriate number: HEmlock-1482.

The chain flourished, and by the mid-1940s it had opened other branches on Union, Chelsea, Jefferson, Lamar, Madison, North Parkway, Poplar, and Summer. This photo, taken in 1943, shows the main branch on Union at Camilla. In addition to medicines and pharmaceuticals, patrons could also enjoy Coca-Colas, sodas, and lunches at the “luncheonette” and — judging from other signs in the windows — bring home Kodak film, Sealtest’s Clover Hill ice cream, Forest Hill milk, and Bexel Vitamin B complex. It’s hard to see on this grainy image, but a wall-mounted thermometer advertises the new Ex-Lax (“That Chocolate Laxative”), and a placard for movie star Barbara Stanwyck promoted the “Hollywood” line of hair products for something called “Good Looks / Good Health Week.”

By 1953, however, the busy store at 1083 Union was the only one remaining, and it closed the following year. Nowadays, almost all the former Doughty-Robinson Drug Store buildings, including the main branch here, have been torn down for parking lots or are standing empty. Only one location, at 1635 Union, is still being used as it was intended. Today, it houses Wiles-Smith Drug Store.

PHOTO COURTESY BENJAMIN HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY