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