The demise of the three two-story buildings on the corner of Main and East Cedar Street in Warren, directly across from the Bradley County Courthouse, brings back lots of memories.
Entering the J. T. Ederington & Company from the corner of Main and Cypress, a side door opening at an angle to the building, always brought me into Ederington’s Department Store from the farm service side of the business.
By Maylon Rice
Saline River Chronicle Feature Contributor
Many may recall, and most will not, that the back portion of the Ederington’s business was dedicated to a few scattered farm service parts and filters and a long shiny counter where Mr. Louis Ederington “bought” people’s cotton.
The buying of the cotton was one of the last vestiges of the plantation society still enacted at Warren in the late 1960s and gone about the time the mid-1970s took place. On this long counter in the rear of the store, a farmer would unroll his cotton sample (a one-pound sample from the 500-pound plus bale of cotton he had ginned and stored at a nearby federal compress warehouse.
The term “federal” compress warehouse was not a government owned facility, but a facility, where the government accounted for the storage of cotton bales, either belonging to the individual farmer or the holder of the mortgage on the cotton.
Here Mr. Louis would unroll the brown paper sample, the cotton, between two sheets of long kraft colored paper. The farmer would present his “receipt” for the stored cotton, often a large heavy cardboard like tag with a matching number to the bale stored in the warehouse identifying the farmer, the weight and the “class” of the cotton. The best class of cotton – silkiest, whites and most “pull” in the fibers of the ginned cotton commanded the best price.
Always Mr. Louis would produce a copy of that day’s Arkansas Gazette or the afternoon issue of the Arkansas Democrat or a copy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a day late but through the U.S. Mail, which included in the business section the “spot” price for cotton, i.e., so many cents per pound.
Pecking the numbers on a giant adding machine with a very high handle, the total was entered and a pull on the handle would produce the desired price per the newspaper.
Often Mr. Ederington, knowing the farmer, might add or not add in a little extra cent for two on the finished price.
He always paid more if the farmer delivered the cotton, baled, in person the close the deal.
Not every bale of cotton was stored in one of these area warehouses at Dumas, Pine Bluff, Dermott, Lake Village and Wilmot. Some farmers might “warehouse” the first bale and if the second bale came along, they would secure it at their farm, to use as extra cash in the very rare, bumper crop year.
After quickly passing through the farm portion of the J.T. Ederington & Company, one would find themselves in the men’s department (run by Tom Sr., and J.D., McMurray). In the very southwest corner of the men’s department was one of the smallest dressing rooms, (for trying on pants) for use. There was a full-length mirror on both sides of the door.
As you worked towards the North side of the store were suits and coats to the left and directly ahead were tables of shirts, underwear and casuals’ ware. The Women’s Department was across the front with their dressing room to the northeast corner of the store.
The shoe department was all across the back of the store for men, women’s and kids shoes. I am almost certain that there were two separate front doors to Edrington’s that opened out onto Cedar Street. There was, at one time, a display window between the two entrances and perhaps another display window on the northeast corner of that store.
Now heading east down Cypress, the back door of Wayne’s brought you into the pool hall – back where the only two regular pool tables were. All the nine-ball and eight-ball games were played back here. The other three tables were all snooker tables, with red snooker balls and the striped and numbered balls for the snooker game.
On the north wall was a set of narrow and I mean narrow steps that began above the world’s stinkiest, nastiest, public urinal (there was no commode) bathroom in the world. The one-person bathroom usually had at least one if not more glass half-pint bottles of booze, in the overflowing trash can there.
But up the stairs was the upper story, where a giant sporting goods store was mostly large cardboard boxes, with magic marker scribbled descriptions of the contents. A large area near the back windows, looking south onto Cypress Street, were massive piles of all types of sports jersey, football, basketball, baseball, track, usually sorted by color and a steaming “press” machine where the letters, number and insignias of every high school in Southeast Arkansas and a few of the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference schools, certainly Arkansas A&M College (today UA-Monticello), Arkansas Mechanical & Normal College (now UA-Pine Bluff), Southern State, Henderson, Ouachita, and others were stored..
At the very rear of the store, under a teetering series of stacks of paperwork, was a desk with a wooden swivel chair – where Wayne Wisener sat, calling area coaches for business and if the visitors showed up – there were a couple of very tired looking cloth covered chairs and one old loveseat for guests.
Also upstairs was a toy land of shiny trophies. It was here that I discovered that a three-foot high trophy was indeed a series of bolts, nuts and gold or silver plates (and some wooded) spacers. There was a pair of “etching” stations where the names, place and times of the trophies for all sports could be finished “in house.”
Here was a station plus along where the jerseys were lettered where Austin Rotton, retired from the U.S. Navy, spent several of his later years helping Wayne run the sporting goods empire.
These two stores will soon be gone. But these backdoor memories will remain etched in my mind…and yours if you’ve ducked off the streets of Warren into them in the past.
Next Week, the back door of Hankins & Son Hardware and the two small buildings next door to the east.
