Charleston Had It All (((( The Series ))) |
Charleston Had It All #1 Clarence Banks owned Deluxe Cab. Andy Carlisle owned Andy’s Cab; Carlisle was Clarence Bank’s son in-law. Together they had seven cabs. It was a good time for cabs, since there were not so many cars during those years. A cab stand or station was the business location of the cab. Deluxe Cab was originally between Daniel Insurance and The New Theater on West Commercial Street. Later the cab station was housed in a lean-to that Banks built against the west wall of the theater. A cab run was a ride to any location in town and cost ten cents. A round trip to Cairo was two bucks. It was not unusual for cabs to drive local men to the Cairo red light district on Thirteenth Street. The cab driver would sit and wait for his customer to return and be driven back to Charleston. The ladies of the night would call and heckle the cab driver from the windows of the house of ill repute. My mother, Mrs. Reeves, and younger sister, Donna, would walk to town on a pretty day. Mom would make her purchases, then afterwards telephone Deluxe Cab to drive them home, saying “323, please” when the operator had asked, “Number, please?” Sometimes I walked with my mother and rode home in the cab with her. I thought it was neat having someone drive you in a cab. Andy Carlisle, father of Bob Carlisle, married Etta Banks, Clarence Banks’ daughter. Etta had Etta’s Beauty Shop above Wright’s Barber Shop next to The New Theater, until she moved the shop to her home. Before and after the war there were many businesses up and down West Commercial Street. If one moved out, there was always another business to move in. Angled on the corner of West Commercial and Olive Street, C. H. Randall once had Phillips 66 filling station. Buddy Randall, his son, at age eleven had his first job there changing tires and filling cars with gasoline. That was in the early forties. And when the carnivals came to town and set up across the side street on the vacant lot, Buddy worked there selling sodas. They were typical carnivals that quickly filled with kids riding the merry-go-round, and swinging on swings swinging out on chains from a center pole. Teenagers and young adults alike excitedly rode the Ferris wheel. When they reached the top, they could see over town. Others meandered through the carnival eating hot dogs, snow cones, and sticky sweet swirls of pink cotton candy. After Phillips filling station closed, Frank May had a radio and television shop in the building during the later forties. People stood outside the building to watch their very first television. It sat in the window facing the street, so all could see. The TV was tiny and the picture snowy. O’Rourke’s Machine Shop was in the next block towards town on the corner of West Commercial and Green Street. O’Rourke was noted for building A-framed dozer blades with scalloped edges used for clearing land. At that time there were still great amounts of wooded area yet to be cleared for farming. Across Green Street from O’Rourke’s, was Texaco filling station (angled on the corner), Doc’s Tavern, and Davis Café, also known as The City Pig Café. The café was a low- slung shoe-box shaped building with windows across the front, and a pig painted below the windows. It had a long counter with stools for seating customers. Davis Café was the first restaurant in town to serve the Coney Island and was swamped for several days with people ordering them. The Coney Island was a cooked hot dog covered with steamy hot chili served on a hot dog bun. A story was that Bevo O’Rourke ate breakfast at The City Pig each morning. Breakfast cost a quarter. Being a frugal man, O’Rourke always drank hot water with breakfast, until somehow—he found that the quarter breakfast included coffee. O’Rourke really got miffed, according to the tale, and never ate at the cafe again. Another version of the tale was that everyday, O’Rourke insisted on having a full pot of hot coffee to make up for all the coffee he missed with his twenty-five cent breakfast. Howard’s Restaurant was near Davis Cafe on West Commercial. Howard’s was noted for good home-style cookin’, and as you would expect, ham and beans were among the favorites on the menu. When the west part of town was alive with the busy stave mill, train depot, filling stations, O’Rourke’s, Webb Motor Company, hotel, and the many other businesses of West Commercial area, the eateries along the way were kept filled with hungry customers.
To be continued |