Bethany Moreton, who grew up in Oxford and is now a professor at the University of Georgia, has a book out titled To Serve God and Wal-Mart. I saw a brief article about it in LIke the Dew: A Journal of Southern Culture and Politics, which talks about the impact of WalMart on Oxford:
The Mississippi native hails from Oxford, which changed dramatically after welcoming a Wal-Mart in the 1980s as part of a mall project.
Before Wal-Mart, Oxford’s square was a place of “public culture” where people of all backgrounds met and talked and spent money at the hardware or fabric store.
Today, businesses offering the basics are gone, done in by Wal-Mart, Moreton says.
“Now, the downtown square in Oxford is full of high-end retail,” she says. “It’s not integrated. The integrated place is the Wal-Mart on the edge of town.”
But Wal-Mart is a poor substitute for the old square because it is private; non-business activities, like political activism, are forbidden.
“It’s kind of supplanted the public square, and in doing so I think we’ve lost some of the space in which important public culture happens,” Moreton says. “That’s troubling.”
Current Wal-Mart executives did not talk to Moreton for the book. Instead, she interviewed retirees from all levels of the company.
Moreton’s father planted the idea for the book when she returned home several years ago and they shopped at Wal-Mart.
“Wal-mart presented itself as such an ideal container for so many stories that shaped the last 50 years,” she says. “It gave me a way to look at a lot of interrelated cultural and economic strands while keeping it rooted in real concrete life experiences.”
I read the article and fail to understand the causal connection. Wal Mart arrived and the Square turned into high end retail? (The usual evolution is for a Wal Mart to open and local establishments, on a square or not, dry up and are replaced by nothing). From what people have told me, the Square’s demise to high end retail and expensive rents started long before Wal Mart arrived. The lack of public square — no more grocery store, post office and etc. — is the result of an increase in 2nd time homebuyers, retirees and/or Ole Miss alums who can afford to patronize the Square and its restaurants on a regular enough basis. I’m no fan of Wal Mart, but many people have mentioned to me that but/for Wal Mart they’d have no where to purchase a lot of things that they used to go to the Square for. I do agree that though the Square is thriving it does not necessarily mean that it is a healthy kind of thriving. I’d like to hear what others who have been here longer than I have to say about it.
Before Wal-Mart, Oxford’s square was a place of “public culture” where people of all backgrounds met and talked and spent money at the hardware or fabric store.
Well … yeah … that’s true enough. I guess “people of all culture” included blacks, whites, locals, college faculty and students, the “courthouse gang (local, state, and federal),” the “banking gang,” the shop owners and their staffs, city folks and county folks, and general hoi polloi. But Rue Grenelle it wasn’t.
I still see those same people on and around the square. Walmart didn’t change the people … Walmart, a quarter century of unbridled credit card usage, dramatic increases in city property tax bills and a concomitant near doubling of the Ole Miss student-faculty-staff population, rapid expansion of the franchise form of doing business, and a small and finite number of parking places changed the storefronts around the square.
There was a time when Oxford square merchants could make a living on maybe an 8-15% markup on their merchandise. Rapidly rising tax assessments and general increases in the costs of living, combined with Walmart’s rapacious business model, doomed many of the local proprietorships. Good quality and low prices will drive out good quality and high prices every time.
Ms Moreton can stroll thru Walmart this evening: every section of the store—baby goods, radios and televisions, music, painting stuff, plumbing stuff, automotive, tires, hunting and fishing, hardware, sporting goods, beer, kids’ clothing, women’s clothing, men’s clothing, pharmacy, lawn and garden, optical, magazines, cameras, camping stuff—represents former proprietorships ground under by Walmart.
As for the shopping public—they go where the stuff is. If it’s at Walmart, they go there. They’re still buying the same stuff and they’re getting it for the lowest prices.
Meanwhile, on the square, merchants now retail at (I’m guessing here) 35-50% markup on boutique fun-to-own stuff, rather than essentials. That, and food and drink.
Walmart, strip malls, credit cards, and lotsa parking places changed Oxford and the square, same as they changed every other place in America. One of Yogi Berra’s observations can be twisted a bit to fit the situation: “Nobody goes to the square anymore … it’s too crowded.”
FD, I know what you are talking about. I’m guessing Beth was born in the mid-70s, but may be wrong about that (I’ve known her since she was a child– she babysat my children when she was a teenager!). She would have missed some of the history you’re talking about.
I started to write a response, which is partially below and realize that I’ve too much detail for a comment. But here’s some Oxford history from the last 40-50 years–Here’s how I see it, from my earliest awareness:
1960ish: There were still till old-fashioned grocers around the Square (City Grocery and Stephens & Tatum), along with Jitney Jungle, which somewhere in the early sixties (I think?) moved to space just north of the Square where it became James Foods. Krogers was where Sneeds is now.
On the Square, you had multiple dry goods stores (Crocketts, Costs, I’m forgetting the others), two classic hardware stores (Shaw and Sneeds, Metts), 4 pharmacies (Leslies, Gatheright Reed, Blaylocks, News). Just off the Square were two movie theaters, two autoparts places, and the Ford dealership. There were a couple of 5 and Dime stores– Morgan and Lindsey (a favorite of mine) and the Goldern Rule (a time capsule, totally). There was an appliance store (Shine Morgan) which, representing that odd historical thing appliance stores having a record business, had a record store next door (in the Faulkner Alley!).
The Square was the center of public business– the public library was upstairs in the courthouse, the federal building and post office were where the City Hall is now (the City Hall was by the Elementary School on West Jackson just off the Square, with the police station behind it). I remember one visit to the Health Department for something, and remember it being an old, 40s looking office near the Square but have no idea where it was.
There was a strip of black businesses behind the shoe shop on West Jackson– a barber shop, a dinner. In the parking lot behind it was the “Colored” only restroom, because the restrooms in the courthouse were not open to blacks. So, at the time everyone in the community would have used the Square,the word “integration” was a questionable one.
There were law and other offices upstairs around the Square– a dentist over what is now Roosters (closed I’m not sure when), etc. An Army Surplus store, aeveral barbers, essentially everything.
There were two dumpy hotels just off the Square– the Colonial and the Henry. Farther out were two “motor hotels”– the Ole Miss Motel on University and one way out on West Jackson by the Drive Inn that later became Johnson’s (I’m not entirely positive when that went in).
I just thought– I know where the barbers were. Where were the hairdressers?
1970:
A couple of strip malls had been built. The old-fashioned groceries were gone. The dry good stores and the dime stores were going or gone– because of the strip malls.
The strip malls did not have a Walmart, of course. There was a TG&Y, a Wests Dept store, I forget what else. There were grocery stores in the strip malls (Krogers, Liberty), and so all the downtown grocers except Jitney Jungle (which had moved off the Square on North Lamar).
Just north of Jitney Jungle, a Holiday Inn with a restaurant and the town’s first bar had opened. Who remembers Clyde Goolsby? (He’s still around).
The strip malls were starting to knock out the dry goods stores and the dime stores.
Somewhere along in here the “Colored only” restroom went away. The barber and diner behind the shoe shop was still there, and somewhere about 1970, law students working in the law office across the alley let everyone know that the dinner had good greasy hamburgers (interestingly, “integration” in Oxford eating places was in part that white folks got to go there, and to Issiah’s Busy Bee…)
So, by the 70s, the Square was just starting to seriously fade in some major areas (dry goods, dime store) from strip malls…
1980: Square Books had just opened. From here through 1990, all the trends look bad for the Square. Sneeds moved. No more dry goods or dime stores. The strip of black businesses left. Banks and lawyers seems to be taking over.
parking is bad. Every time I would go to Oxford to see a client in the square, I’d have to drive several times around the square until I could find a parking spot.
As for Walmart, I shop at such stores because unlike most of the mom and pops, they don’t keep bankers hours and also have better inventory. I quit patronizing my nearby hardware store when over half the time I had to leave there and go to Home Depot as they didn’t have what I needed. I remember when Books a Million first opened here, Lemuria wasn’t even open on weekends and closed during the week by 7.
My wife and used to drive 30 miles to the Oxford Wal-Mart because ours was so bad. We almost always ate on the Square and bought books at Square Books. So don’t assume that Wal-Mart is all negative.
NCM, Enjoyed reading your memories of old Oxford and maybe I can fill in a few of your blanks and add a few from the 1950s. More of the dry goods businesses on the square were Cobb’s (where First National Bank is now), Ruth’s Ladies Shop was located on the south side of Neilson’s and Freedman’s(sp) on the west side. Sears was also on the west side. Mens shops were Duvall’s located next door to Leslie’s Drugs and Hume’s located on Van Buren where As Seen on TV was. In the 1950s, the police station was located in Faulkner Alley. The motel on West Jackson was Mansel Motel and was built in the late 50s There was another 5 and Dime on the square, just west of Metts Hardware. It was Winters and was home of the “famous” fried hot dog. Kroger moved into its new location (Sneed Building) from South Lamar about where Pearl Street Pasta is now located. Haney Chevrolet was in the Anchorage Building and the Dodge-Plymouth dealer (Belk I think) was across the street about where NaAnn’s is today.
There was another pharmacy on North Lamar (about where the alteration shop is now) but I don’t remember the name.
Posey’s Pharmacy was the one on North Lamar.
Bum: How long was the record store in Faulkner Alley? I know the police station was there in the sense of someone telling me that, but I don’t remember it being there. I bought my first LP in the record store, circa 1969, but am not sure how much earlier it was there.
Of course, I should have listed Freedmans, where my trunk for Boy Scout came in 1964 was purchased. And I forgot a couple of “Lady’s shops” (Ruths, and… I’m drawing a blank. The one on the West side of the Square) and Duvall’s, the men’s store, located (in the 60s) where Ball’s law office is now.
It’s funny how much memory has to do with what stores one went to– my father went to City Barber (next to where Square Pizza is) and Duvalls, so I’m less aware of Humes (over on Van Buren) or the barber shop Mitchell’s (on North Lamar?).
I didn’t remember Winters as a 5 and Dime; not sure what I thought it was, but my mother for some reason disapproved and I was not allowed in there.
There was a “lady’s shop” named The Barn (or something similar) about where Ajax is or where Scruggs former office is. Seems like there was another lady’s shop where the Tollison Law Firm is (groundfloor.) The fabric store was on the south side of the square until ?.
My parents grew up in Oxford and were in college in the 40′s and recall the students complaining about the farmer’s market, complete with horse and wagons, on the square on Saturdays. Time marches on, Walmart or not.
“Good quality and low prices will drive out good quality and high prices every time.”
If what Wal-Mart sells can be classified as good quality items we are in a heap of trouble. Another thing Wal-Mart does great for the communities it invades is not insuring any of their workers, so that they actually increase a community’s burden in paying for a large mass of underpaid and non-insured workers. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about setting your morals aside when buying a shopping cart full of plastic items made by underage workers in the most oppressive of situations. But, they do have a lot of stuff in one place and they sell goldfish, pretty awesome.
NCM: I moved from Oxford in 1962 and do not remember the record shop in Faulkner Alley. I guess by then I wasn’t buying that many records.
Blackbear: I have no issues with the quality of Walmart’s offerings. They sell the same name brands most other stores sell. My biggest issue with Walmart is that it’s a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up a community’s money and hosing it back to Bentonville, Arkansas. They leave a little tax money here, but the profits and the benefits of profits never benefit the community that produced them. It’s gone gone gone.
NoMiss, Hayward’s barn was the store that replaced Friedman’s Dry Goods, and was three doors south of Ajax (Crouch’s jewelry, which just became a furniture store, and one other building between it and Ajax. The fabric store moved in the late 80s.
Tightlip: There’s still talk of wanting to bring the newly revived Farmer’s Market back to the Square area.
You all forgot Chapmans Mens Store on the southeast corner of the square; Morgan and Lindsey on the southwest corner; Western Auto on the west side of South Lamar north of Univ. Ave.; the old Seay’s Mansion Restaurant in the same block that burned in the late 60′s; the Frabric Shoppe across from Western Auto; and Mel Chrestman’s guitar lessons upstairs over Leslies.
NMC, I remember most of the beauty shops being outside the area of the square and were one or two chair operations that required really low rent space. Some were in small buildings close to their homes.
Finally, you forgot the first liquor store which was just north of the Western Auto with the front windows painted out with pea-soup green paint. We used to ride our bikes uptown to watch people try and sneak in and out unseen.
BB: “…Another thing Wal-Mart does great for the communities it invades is not insuring any of their workers, so that they actually increase a community’s burden in paying for a large mass of underpaid and non-insured workers…”
Having worked in “mom and pop” retail earlier in life (clerk not owner) I do not remember health insurance benefits being offered, that is on top of my minimum wage paycheck.
Chapmans I was thinking of as one of the dry goods stores, perhaps mistakenly. I mentioned Morgan and Lindsey.
Chrestman was further down– over what is now the main entrance to the Downtown Grill, and behind the Lowe Brothers’ office.
Go to Columbia, Mississippi. I wonder how many of the items sold at Walmart would still be available there if Walmart did not exist? I’m sure someone would sell a complete selection of the latest plasma tvs, computer equipment, or home furnishings such as sheets, pillows, etc. I’m also pretty sure someone would open up a pharmacy that could stay in business with the new medicare changes (Remember Brent’s Drugs?). Wait, those wouldn’t be available and Columbia residents would have to drive to Hattiesburg to buy those things, thus sending all the sales tax revenue to another county and city.
Kingfish, I grew up in Columbia and it had (and has) stores that sold all the things you mention before Wal-Mart. In fact, my parents’ business sells the latest plasma TVs and computer equipment in direct competition with Wal-Mart.
Canton still has a real square and Canton has a Wal-Mart. You shouldn’t blame Wal-Mart for Oxford’s yuppified square. Look to yourselves.
Canton has no Wal Mart. There is a Wal Mart in Madison, about 10 miles south of Canton.
nolmyrights, I was headed toward what I think but had too much detail and too little time.
One thing I was headed toward contending is that the change in the Square in Oxford preceded Wal-Mart– the death of the dry goods stores, the move of the small businesses catering to the Black community, etc. There was an era when it appeared that law offices and banks were going to take over the entire square.
And while high-priced boutiques may be an issue, what’s really taking over the area of the Square is bars:
Halmark Shop (was Sneeds): two story bar.
three doors down, dress shop: Oyster bar, under construction
three doors down, part of jewelry store: bar / sandwich place.
on Jackson avenue starting just beyond Merchants & Farmers:
Law office: sushi place / bar
Shoe Shop: bar
across the street:
barber shop: bar
the space at the bottom of old Henry Hotel has long been a bar so I’m not counting that, btu there are 3 bars in that space now.
Jefferson:
pool hall: HUGE bar.
across the street: Music hall/bar
behind that, where the Elliott’s lumber was, has been restaurants a while, now two bar/restaurants.
South Lamar:
Pearl Street pasta is going to be a sports bar. I’m drawing a blank now– the Western Auto was in the middle of that block and Stephens and Tatum grocers I think on the Square end. What was in that space long ago?
Part of the Fabric Center space is now most of Proud Larry’s. The Rib Cage, a restaurant and bar, was once a furniture store.
By 1988, the change in the Square involving closing or moving of old-time businesses had pretty much taken place– Sneeds had moved, the dry goods and dime stores were long gone, etc– but the “yuppification” had not really happened yet. Folks need to remember how abandoned the Square was at night– the notion that one would have a problem parking on the square at 8:00 PM would have been laughable. When Square Books started opening at night, it was like a ghost ship. But the change in the scene at night is what really changed the Square.
And as someone who has worked in a business just off the Square essentially my whole life, I’d say the shift toward a bar/restaurant scene can’t be overstated.
Bethany Moreton’s book would be an interesting read, but Walmart can’t be blamed for the changes on the Oxford Square or Oxford. There are so many other factors to consider since Oxford is a small college town. I forget the percentages, but until the late 80′s or early 90′s, the major income source in Lafayette County was transfer payments. Next was state and federal government employment. Basically, the university was the major “industry” in Lafayette County, and those salaries were not very high. There was not a lot of locally earned consumer money available to spend. Merchants really depended on the students, and only a limited number of those students had money for extras beyond necessities.
I don’t remember the year that the hospital grew into a major medical facility bringing numerous physicians to Oxford, but that was a change in the economic culture in Oxford and Lafayette County. Former Mayor Pat Lamar prettified the Square, making it a unique attraction in town, rather than simply a place to get business done. Then there was the influx of alums who had gone out and made money in the world and decided to come back to Oxford to spend a good bit of it–not only on themselves, also their children installed at the university for four, five, or six years. (I even know a few alums whose children got uninstalled at the university several years ago, but the children are still in Oxford spending their parents’ money.)
The Square changed as the value of its property increased after consumers arrived who, as Ben stated, had plenty of money to spend on fun things–not just necessities. As the rent and property value rose, the merchants selling necessities moved elsewhere (people are going to have to buy those wherever they are.)The Square was by then attractive and unique and became a gathering place for high rent fun rather than a gathering place to do business. Notice that Walmart has not been mentioned in that set of changes. IMO, the Oxford Square reflects the metamorphosis of the town of Oxford, regardless of whether Walmart had come to town or not.
What was Mike Bridges’ comment to the planning committee? Wasn’t it something like: In the 70′s (early 80′s-?), at seven o’clock in the evening, you could have stood in the square and shot a gun down Jackson Street and not have hit a person?
point well taken but I think you get the idea. Walmart has brought things to more rural areas that were not available before or were available at limited hours. Its not just about price.
Cary Hudson can tell you when things starting going bad in Oxford:
Well I knew this town was headed for hell
the day they tore down the hippy hotel
(lyrics to Blue Mountain’s “Hippy Hotel)
Is there a comparison somewhere of Wal-mart and Target? I keep hearing Target is a more civic rent paying kind of place, but that it’s got some kind of dreaded “French Connection.” If you get a chance, read Nickeled and Dimed. From wikipedia: “Some people jokingly give Target the pseudo-French pronunciation /tɑrˈʒeɪ/ tar-zhay, as though it were an upscale boutique. This trend is incorrectly believed to have been started by Oprah Winfrey, when she used the French pronunciation to refer to the store on her television show; it has actually been traced back to 1962, the year the first Target store opened; this was reinforced by a 1980s television advertisement starring Didi Conn. This pronunciation has also led some people to incorrectly believe that the company is French-owned.”
NMC’s comment about the number of bars on and around the square injects another aspect regarding the changes in the square. In the “olden days,” because liquor was illegal in Oxford, students were still spending money on liquor, but that liquor money just wasn’t being spent in Oxford. Memphis got huge amounts of party money from Ole Miss students. It seems that I remember a lot of liquor money being spent in the Holly Springs area as well as in spots along Hwy 6 on the way to Batesville. Students were buying liquor and having “fun” even in the old days when the square didn’t house a single bar and parking spaces were abundant on the square after 8 pm. That money just went somewhere else.
With the change in liquor laws, the liquor money and its accompanying fun could then stay in Oxford. Those selling liquor realized that Ole Miss students really enjoy their liquor–and lots of it. Connect that with considerable amounts of consumer money readily available from the residents–local or part-time, lots of students seeking release from the daily stress of strenuous course work, and parents willing to pay for their children’s stress relief, and the result is a local square ringed in liquor-selling establishments.
SuperTargets are very nice.
I love Target. Wild horses couldn’t drag me into a Wal Mart.
NoMiss @ 1:16: And add to all you mention the 6, 7, or 8 football games Ole Miss plays in Oxford each Fall. Each game is a spigot of major, major money for Oxford merchants. And a lotta stress gets relieved.
no!myrights@10:23:
Canton still has a real square and Canton has a Wal-Mart. You shouldn’t blame Wal-Mart for Oxford’s yuppified square. Look to yourselves.
Close … but wrong.
Holly Springs has both a square and a Walmart. Who gets the blame for Holly Springs’s “yuppification”?
It appears bars and restaurants(BNRs) are what are revitalizing a lot of downtown areas, not just Oxford. When I was a kid, downtown Baton Rouge was a shit hole. Completely abandoned, even for the most part by the state government. It is coming back now, but the majority of the merchants you see are BNRs and banks. The state government is slowly migrating back in, but it followed the BNRs appearing.
And it the small town I live in now: When I started college 15 years ago, there were only a handful of businesses in the 10 block downtown, and they were located on one block by the post office. Most had moved about two miles away to where the Albertson’s and Winn Dixie had built.
Now, there are several BNRs. Once the restaurants opened, the bars followed. Who doesn’t want to grab a drink after dinner? (Remember,I live in south Louisiana) Professionals (attorneys & CPAs) started opening offices downtown. Service providers (insurance agencies, tailors, the local locksmith, salons, etc.) soon followed. And now there is only one block that HAS NOT be redeveloped. (And it is on the main road, so I still haven’t figured out why.)What I have seen in Baton Rouge and this town seems to indicate that without the BNRs, there is no redevelopment.
What scares me about Walmart is what will happen when it has driven out all the competition. Doubt the prices will remain so low when all the options have vanished.
Right now you can get pretty much everything you’ll ever need at Walmart, and I’ve read they are considering selling cars and anchoring new subdivisions to “build in” their customer base.
If they just add a church and a funeral parlor that’s pretty much the whole ball of wax except for the traditional illegal stuff and that’ll prob’ly be for sale in the parking lot if it isn’t already.
I found this quote in the Wikipedia entry for Wal-Mart interesting:”Penn & Teller devoted an episode of Bullshit! to an analysis of Wal-Mart criticism as a social movement. They theorized that despite the noble rhetoric, the real motivation of “Wal-Mart haters” was rooted in human psychology. They suggested that hating Wal-Mart permits a person “to feel better about themselves” for three main reasons: They “don’t run a greedy international conglomerate”, they aren’t Wal-Mart workers, widely considered “low-skilled, minimum wage drones”, and they aren’t Wal-Mart customers thought of as “toothless, welfare-getting hillbillies”.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
when i think of oxford square, i think of food, drink, and books. from the city grocery to the blind pig, it’s bnr to me. moreton can think about “back when” but “back when” we had pay phones not cell phones and they were probably not located in a red english phone booth.
“Holly Springs has both a square and a Walmart. Who gets the blame for Holly Springs’s “yuppification”?” I guess the people in Holly Springs. I’m taking your word on the Holly Springs square. I’ve been there once in my life about 35 years ago. By the way, I don’t think yuppification is all bad. I’ll be in Oxford for a couple of days in a few weeks and am looking forward to hanging out on the square. In the 70′s when I lived in Oxford I would not have gone to the square unless I needed a corkscrew. I often needed a corkscrew because the hardware store on the square sold crappy corkscrews that didn’t last.
NMC- I was living in Oxford immediately before and after liquor by the drink was legalized. I also think that change in the laws leading to a bar/restaurant scene had more impact on the square than Wal-Mart. I saw the change start happening as soon as the law was passed.
“In the 70’s when I lived in Oxford I would not have gone to the square unless I needed a corkscrew.”
I find that statement from no!myrights interesting because it’s similar to what someone else said to me. A year or so ago I met a man who had lived in Oxford—taught at the university–for twelve years through the 70′s and into the 80′s. Making conversation I mentioned the square as it is today as opposed to what it was then. His response was, “I never went to the square when I lived in Oxford.”
The problem of University people who didn’t “get” the square– or never sought to be part of the community where they resided– is an old one, and an ongoing one. it’s slightly different than the question of how the Square has changed.
if what the square means to you is utility at the where-can-I-get-a-corkscrew, it (other than Met’s hardware) was always a bust. But that’s not what a community is about, and the square is a community to me. Someone who saw it that way never sought to join it.
I lived in Oxford for many years and ya’ll bring back lots of fond memories.
Two businesses not mentioned: Elliott Jewelry Store on the square and Purvis Pool Hall just off the square on Van Buren.
James Purvis probably retired and sold out but what happened to Ellott’s. Owned by Mayor Elliott’s wife Lake and ran by daughter and son-in-law Carolyn and Gary Carter.
FYI, Mayor Elliott’s sister was Mrs. V.A. Franklin , they owned the laundry/cleaners a door or two from the Freeland Law offce. The Franklin’s daughter Linda was married to Ed Morgan who owned the appliance store and also the liquor store mentioned in an earlier post.
I could go on and on but I had better shut up in case I want to write a novel about Oxford someday.
WaySouth
NMC, you have continued the thought that I started at 10:14pm, but was too tired to finish. Oxford was (is) really a tale of two towns. For Bethany and for you and those who grew up there, the town of Oxford meant the community whose visible identity was the Square and whose sense of community meant the congregation of hometown businesses and hometown folk who visited on the Square and did business on the Square. Hence, the Square’s identity as the town’s center of “public culture.”
However, the University, as the town’s major “industry” was mostly serviced by–and served–a totally different group of people. This group of people, for the most part, had no emotional investment in the town that came from growing up there; therefore the Square was simply a place to do business. If that business could be done in some more convenient place or where the price was better, so be it. For them, the Square was a place of utility.
(Before one faults the “University people who didn’t get the Square,” let’s not forget the love-hate relationship the townspeople had with the University people, especially the students. The hometown hated the inconveniece of having all these strangers invading “their” town creating traffic, noise, dissidence, etc., but they loved the money these strangers brought them. When I first arrived in Oxford years ago, I noted that all the hometown locals either worked at the university or sold something to the students. And I will note from personal experience as a student shopping on the Square,—let’s just say that some of those hometown merchants could have learned a lot from Walmart about friendly customer service. My point is that both groups must extend a hand for the “town and gown” to be joined, and that certainly seems to be happening today more than in the past.)
As you said, that’s a whole different question from Bethany’s premise about the change in the Square. However, perhaps if the hometown merchants had excelled in friendly customer service and had provided better products (the best corkscrew around), better services (I’m thinking about the downtown theatre where I sat with my feet in the seat because of the vermin crawling on the floor)–just perhaps some might still be there. For example, Neilson’s is still there. But I think Oxford’s Square just moved with the times—it just couldn’t stay in that time warp forever. Walmart was just part of that change, not the reason for the change.
NoMiss, there are university people who are integral to the life of the Square and always have been–right now, for instance, Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennely, Jack Pendarvis all come to mind– they have made themselves as much a part of the community here as they are part of the university community.
On the other hand, there are folks who have almost a short-timers attitude–even in decades of residence– as if they were just temporary here before moving on to something better.
And, while it’s part of the mix, the question of how well exchanges between small town merchants and their customers go seems to me a small-minded one in defining community.
In my opinion, the things that revolutionized the Square in the last 25 years have to do with the growth of Square Books and the City Grocery (for a time, the Southside Gallery was an important part of this shift), changing what the Square meant to people. The national trend of strip-malls-destroying-small-town-stores had already occurred, closing the dry goods stores, dime stores, and hardware stores on the square in the same way a generation earlier supermarkets began the end of grocers.
Something is definitely lost in that transition, economically inevitable though it may have been, as I think to myself every time I either seek to buy a decent chicken or a single machine screw of the appropriate size. And it’s not a matter that Wal-Mart beat the “mom-and-pop” store on price– Mets Hardware sold a $1.75 red wine glass that was simple and durable and servicable at the same time I saw the same one for $9 in a dept store and never saw a usable one in chains. (what does the useless package of screws cost as opposed to that single 2 cent screw?)
NoMiss:
There’s also this: In your dichotomy of “here are the town people,” “here are the university people,” I don’t see a pigeon-hole for me.
There’s also this: In your dichotomy of “here are the town people,” “here are the university people,” I don’t see a pigeon-hole for me.
Well, NMC, I think most people who frequent your blog will admit that you are unique–not your average pigeon.
In my opinion, NoMiss was correct earlier when he referred to the hospital having the “most significant economic change” (my phrase) to Oxford. In the 90′s, I was a residential appraiser for eight years. I remember a couple of brothers from Oxford (Bradford? Sam was one?), appraisers both, at the time they had developed software to estimate the value of homes by computer methods only. Eventually, I think they established an appraisal management firm, which is supposed to provide the “firewall” between loan originators and appraisers. Anyway, they took a hard look at the differences between Oxford, Starkville, Cleveland, and Hattiesburg (college towns all). They contended that the expanded medical center, with well-paid doctors, nurses, etc… in Oxford was the main driving force in the differences between Oxford and Starkville, both of which had healthy appreciations of the value of their real-estate, but Oxford’s was experiencing a higher rate. Cleveland had a decent real-estate market, entirely due to DSU. The Hattiesburg market was the least affected by their college and was more similar to Jackson and Meridian (non-college towns). Not that USM is not important to Hattiesburg, but Hattiesburg would exist with a healthy economy (Mississippi-speaking) with or without USM. Oxford, Starkville, and Cleveland are far more dependent upon their universities, and Oxford, with the expanded medical center, is the best off.
There is a strange thing driving the Oxford market in the last 10 years, WTBAL, involving people buying houses or even moving here because they want to be in Oxford– it’s sort of university related, but these people aren’t working with the university. That’s not medical-center-driven.
Who was the Oxford butcher who had a store between the University and the Square on the north side of Jackson Street just east of the railroad overpass?
Bethany Moreton will be at Thacker Mountain Radio on October 15th, 2009.
I found Beth’s own description of To Serve God and Wal-Mart on the web:
http://www.powells.com/blog/?author=635
It looks fascinating!
I was a grad student at UM, in 1974-76. I worked fulltime at night, to pay my way. I got to know the town people really better than the students, due to working at the Holiday Inn, off the square. Lots of the police and townspeople came to drink coffee in the restaurant, when I worked there. Then when I worked in the bar, a lot of the business men and politicians came to drink and socialize. I worked with Clyde Goolsby, mentioned in another message above. Clyde gave me 2 nights to learn to mix all the normal drinks, and I did. He treated me like a little sister and knew that I could handle most any situation, but if there was any doubt, he would step in like a big brother.
How long has the Holiday Inn been gone? What is Clyde doing now? I lived near the square, in an apartment in the old McCall House,across from Sneed’s Hardware. I used to see Clyde socializing at the Barber Shop behind that house or the law office next door. A girlfriend and I used to sit on the veranda and whistle at Harry Sneed. He would blush and duck into a side door of the store.
I used to walk home from the HI, but one night a man met me on the sidewalk, and said some slurring remarks to me. I just walked on. He followed me into the house and up the stairs, but I went to the apartment across from mine. When my friend opened the door, the man fled. I called the police to make a report, and gave a description of my follower. I didn’t go to press charges, because I was tired, after a day of classes and night of work. The next day, the policeman that came to make the report, said he stopped the guy around the corner, but couldn’t pick him up, because I didn’t file a complaint. I told him that if I had, the guy might be waiting for me in my apartment the next time. He said if that happened, the guy might end up at the bottom of the river. I replied, “After the fact, of whatever he might do to me, right?”
I told Clyde about it, and he put the word out at the barbershop and around town. I never had anymore problems. I started driving to work, to help prevent any more problems.
I enjoyed my 2 years in Oxford, and getting to know lots of the local people. It was a lot like many other small towns, where you reap what you sow. If you are nice to the people, they will usually respond in like.