BLOCK 4 - Main Street Tour     Locate on map



Preparing to cross Rusk, it is necessary to remember to watch your 
step as the sidewalk on the east of side of Martin’s is elevated. 
Most likely this feature was created to keep the buildings more 
or less level since the grade from the railroad tracks up Main 
is gradually uphill. Once across the street it is soon apparent 
that this block is one that features mere shells of former 
businesses. On the corner are the remains of what was Traders’
Grocery. The Garza family once owned and operated the grocery 
and lived in the apartment above it.

Next door was Killingsworth’s
Hardware Store, sort of 
an early-day equivalent 
of a Home Depot. It had 
nuts and bolts and such 
as well as all sorts of 
handy home gadgetry. It 
was also possible to 
bring gifts there to be 
beautifully wrapped by 
Mrs. Killingsworth herself. 
Since the family-owned 
funeral home on Pine 
Street was not its original 

location, one wonders if maybe the second floor of this store may have 
served as an early mortuary. For a few years the Arterburn family 
operated a store at this same location, called variously Arterburn’s 
Appliances and Arterburn’s Hardware and sometimes Hardware & Furniture. 
Farther down West Main about a block east of the swimming pool was 
a oil field supply shop also owned by the Arterburn family. It was
at the intersection of Sue and Main.

In an upstairs location on this 
block was the office of Dr. A.
K. Wier. Next came a home decor
store with its entrepreneur Lottie 
Davenport; it predated her later 
becoming a nurse at West Texas 
Hospital. Even in the 50’s much 

of this block was vacant or becoming so, the walker has to rely on 
the memories of those who came before. Most likely the next location 
was the site of what was Godwin’s Furniture Store. King’s Cafe, later 
across the street and up a bit, was originally in this block adjacent 
to the alley. Perhaps surprisingly, King’s is remembered to have 
included assorted ethnic foods, such as Italian and Mexican, on its 
menu. Brownie King, its owner/operator, also had a drive-in restaurant 
on Highway 80 East as well as the Polka-Dot Inn in Strawn.
 
Now our walk brings us to the first north-south running alley we have 
crossed. The business in the first door we come to was in the 1950’s 
Addie Williams’ fix-it shop; perhaps it has been something else 
previously. D. O. Moffitt earlier also had an electrical repair 
shop somewhere in this vicinity. As we approach the railroad tracks, 
in the 1950’s we would be walking along a vacant lot utilized to 
display used cars for sale.  Now it houses the town’s only bank 
(among other names it has been known as The People’s State Bank 
of Clyde, Ranger Branch) and perhaps its newest building. Before 
the lot was vacant, however, photos and old timers’ memories recall 
a two-story building with a diagonal corner drive-through. End Tour