PICAYUNE — Main Street’s historical committee has singled out with an historic plaque a second building in the program, which is designating important sights in the downtown historical district.

The second designation is the old C&R Store, or Crosby and Rowlands Store, at the corner of Third Street and Harvey Avenue. McDonald Funeral was recently the first historical sight to be designated with a plaque.

Harvey Avenue today is U.S. Highway 11 through the city.

C&R dedication ceremonies took place on Wednesday morning.

Don Wicks, a local poet and writer who is heading the historical committee, said the committee is in the process of drawing up plans for designating a number of sites and then establishing an historical tour through the downtown district.

The old C&R location highlights the history of Picayune as a milltown, as the Crosby industrial interests supplied most of the jobs and money that sustained early Picayune, said Wicks.

The building was constructed around 1926 by Theodore Schaller for L.O. Crosby, Sr., and his partner Lamont Rowlands. Occupying the structure was the C&R Mercantile.

The store was originally a commissary for lumber mill employees.

Brozines (pronounced bro-zeens), a copper coin, was used by company workers to purchase items in the store. The mill workers were paid in brozines.

As time progressed, the store evolved into a department store for the general public, carrying a full line of merchandise, including fine clothing, jewelry and hardware, says the plaque.

On the second floor of the building was offices for the Crosby and Rowlands’ enterprises. In the late 1920s the Rowlands sold out to Crosby for $1 million. That included Rowlands’ interests in the timber mill operations and the store.

With the decline of the lumber industry, the store was closed in the late 1950s and in 1961 was leased to Winn-Dixie. In 1970, R.E. Smith purchased it and operated the Ford dealership out of the building.

In 1980 it was sold to S.G. Thigpen, Jr., who moved Thigpen Furniture into the building. In 1989 the building was purchased by Jack Diamond, who operated his unique Allied Heirlooms, a wedding dress preservation operation out of the building that achieved a successful worldwide reputation and distribution.

Today, the building is vacant and is owned by Diamond’s daughter, Susan Williams, who plans to sell it.

Following is an in-depth story about the building, recently written by Mark Clinton Davis, editor of the Pearl River Co. Historical Reporter. The story is reprinted here with Davis’ permission:

 “To some a respite and an island of elegance and to others the company store to which they owed their soul,  the C & R (Crosby and Rowlands Store) began as the employee commissary of the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company in 1918 and existed then in a smaller version at Goodyear, one mile from its ultimate location. In 1917 Monroe David Tate  built the Tate Hotel on Harvey Avenue.  Its 50 rooms, two large dining rooms and sumptuous lobby attracted many people to the area.  A decade later when L. O.  Crosby, Sr., and Lamont Rowlands opened their store next door, this block of Harvey became the hub of all things Picayune.  (The block is bordered by Second and Third streets and Harvey Avenue or Hwy. 11.)

 “No architect is listed as being attached to it, but Theodore Schaller fashioned the building in brick and steel.  Its spacious ground floor became a showcase of whatever goods anyone could possibly need:  groceries,  clothing,  jewelry,  tobacco,  candies and  hardware.  On the mezzanine and upper floor were offices.  At the back of the store was a roll-up door of corrugated metal.  Two black gentlemen guarded it.   Most deliveries came through this door.  This area was also busy with people filling call-in orders for delivery.

 “Bread came to the store in the middle of the night.  These deliveries were left in boxes in front of the store.  The boxes were closed by means of a hasp.  It was near them that the overheated first motorcycle of Picayune's first motorcycle policeman,   Ottis Mitchell, burst into flames and expired. Officer Mitchell was somewhat luckier that day.

 “On this same patch of sidewalk children gathered after school  to act silly and view their distorted reflections in the wavy glass of the store windows.

 “Numerous people worked there at one time or another: Hazellnell Hampton, Beulah Walker and Nell McQueen worked the office. Mae Davis Marquez cashiered prior to Dixie Graves.  Ella Schreck worked grocery and Hilda Barrett Wise the Goodyear branch along with many others. Some came straight out of high school and remained for years.  A. L.  Jones,  D.  W.  Gillis and T. M.  Stokes managed at various times. J. E.  Mayo worked as comptroller over the office. Ben Sowden worked there as a butcher before  taking  Orren Smith from the grocery as a partner to open Sowden and Smith.  This later evolved into the Sunflower Market which still operates on Palestine Road.

 “To the left upon entering the store a fortunate customer might see Minnie Schaller overseeing  a large candy counter.  In the 1940s during the war, when candy was rationed, Minnie took it upon herself to write the names of all the children that came in to ask for candy. When shipments arrived she would parcel out the candy into bags equally and call the parents of every child on her list to insure that each child would have something. It was a gum and toffee kindness that gained her much affection.   

 “To the right, the fashion department kept up with the latest things from New York and Paris. The first buyer was Fannie Rowlands, Lamont's refined daughter. Later this position fell to the impeccable Nina Lofton Tate. Her friend and fellow camellia enthusiast, Willie Mae Spiers Lee, once said of her that whether she attended a Baptist dinner-on-the-ground in the high heat of Summer or a sloppy barbecue she always returned home without a smudge even if wearing white linen. She walked to work from her Main Street house always under the shade of a parasol and the little girls of the neighborhood thought she might be a tall elegant queen. Willie Mae's husband, Hulon Lee, held a position similar to Nina's in the men's department. Later Alvin Goodwin bought out the clothing part and opened an attached store. In the 1950s every Boy Scout in Picayune went through this shop for uniforms and camping equipment, axes, badges and backpacks.

 “On the main floor at the back between the butcher's counter and the shoe department, Dixie Graves worked as the main cashier, processing bills as they magically arrived in pneumatic tubes, sending receipts back to the correct department where finished bills were impaled on chefs' spindles. This area along with the mezzanine became transformed during Christmas into something festive, wondrous and sparkling. Also on the mezzanine was the very busy time office of the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company where Talbert Martin and Willodean Sanders Porter processed payrolls every two weeks and where cards were traded against time worked, an early form of credit. In the 1020s the payroll approached one-thousand employees, but in later years only during the tung season would payroll again reach nine hundred.

 “The truck system employed by the Goodyear Mill included not only scrip (paper credits) and brozine, a coin that could be exchanged only at the C & R. However, some mill workers were also indebted for rents. Picayune's most modern and luxurious department store was also the  most visible and concrete evidence symbolizing  Picayune's fall to the status of a company town less than 20 years after its incorporation, a role it would retain for the better part of 50 years. With more than a third of its population working for Goodyear Yellow Pine and more than another third the dependents of those workers, few did not enjoy visiting the C & R for few could escape it. 

 “Although Mr. Rowlands sold out his interest in 1929 and the store became in name and fact the Crosby Store, the building's moniker remains "The C & R." When the store closed and the building sold to Winn Dixie, it served again as a grocery in the 1960s. In 1996 Jack Diamond bought the building and it became a specialized cleaners restoring wedding gowns and leather pieces. Presently the building is for sale.  It is slated to be one of the first buildings in town to receive a plaque from the Main Street Association honoring its historic status.  On the building's exterior, the fading pentimenti of the store's original signs remain visible testaments to that status.

 “(Thanks to Beverly Stockstill Creel,  Barbara Lee Holifield,  Johnnie Lou Ingram,  Mary Joy Jopes,  Willie Mae Spiers Lee,  Jackie Mitchell,   Willodean Sanders Porter and Susan Mitchell Tucker for their memories.)”

 (Editor’s Note: This story was compiled with historical information and input supplied by Don Wicks and Mark Clinton Davis.)