March 28, 2024

How time flies

From Jim and Sandy Stalker, owners, The Bookstore

Creston

My, how time flies! It has only been 40 plus years ago in 1973 when we decided that Creston needed a bookstore. We moved around a few times till landing at our present location at 210 N. Maple and purchased the building. Eventually, we built our home above the store in two of the above apartments. This building comes with a lot of history.

Most recently, it was the Creston Shopper, before that, a temporary location for the police department, until their building could be added to the Union County Courthouse. Somewhere in between, John Spriggs opened a dress shop and before that, the redemption store for S&H Green Stamps. If you don’t know what that was all about, ask your grandparents.

There are some empty spaces in my memory about what else was located there, but at one time, probably somewhere in the ‘20s, it was Emerson Funeral Home. Next door, in Carter’s Insurance Agency, that space was a doctor’s office and hospital. The upstairs was used for recovery. In place of stairs, ramps were built to facilitate access by gurney. The ramps remain in use today. I’ve often wondered if there was a connection in ownership between the two businesses. It almost seems too much of a coincidence that a funeral home would be located right next to a surgery room to handle the occasional error or untimely demise of a patient. Eventually, the access from Carter’s side was boarded up and forgotten about until many years later when that forgotten space became known as the Jimmy Hoffa room.

And now, it’s time to retire and find a different location to live. If any of your readers would be interested to buying an established 40 year business, or not, within a historical building with inside parking, send them around. We’d be glad to talk to them about the possibilities.