Towns like Henderson began popping up in the mid 1800’s as landowners gave land to railroad companies for their business ventures, conjuring up, no doubt, visions of economic prosperity – for themselves and for the local communities.
And Mark Pace attributes the general layout of downtown Henderson to the railroad. Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about the history of downtown Henderson on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk, beginning with the physical layout of the major streets included in downtown Henderson. Garnett, Chestnut and William streets all run parallel to each other – and to the railroad tracks, which once carried freight and passenger trains through town.
Pace said Henderson was “built in a hurry,” between 1870 and 1890, with 1885 being a “game changing year” for the relatively new city, which was established in 1841.
Back then, all the buildings downtown were wooden structures, Pace said. And in 1885, a fire “basically destroyed” the downtown.
Those wooden buildings “were replaced with something nicer, something finer,” Pace said, and many of the lovely old brick and masonry building facades along Garnett Street have stood the test of time.
In fact, the Henderson Central Business District is on the National Register of Historic Places and includes not only Garnett Street but Chestnut Street and William Street as well, Pace said.
In addition to the iconic clock tower and fire department, Zollicoffer Law Office and former H. Leslie Perry Library buildings at one end of Garnett, there’s the Henry A. Dennis Building, the art nouveau style O’Neal Building and the building touted as the tallest in downtown – the five-story Vance Furniture Company.
As with many downtowns in cities small and large, Henderson’s downtown was a center of commerce from the 1870’s clear into the early 1970’s, Pace said. That’s when malls began to be popular.
In addition to the several movie theaters, downtown Henderson had several clothing stores – E.G. Davis, Roth-Stewart and Leggett – as well as hardware stores like Falkner Building Supply, Watkins Hardware and Rose Gin & Supply. There were shoe stores and jewelry stores, drug stores, barber shops and more – all downtown.
When P.H. Rose came to Henderson from Northampton County, he had already opened up a store in Littleton, Pace said, and in 1915, he opened the first store in Henderson.
He was an innovator, Pace said, and it was Rose who capitalized on the concept of customer self-service.
Business was booming for Rose’s stores. “They expanded so fast that at one point, he was opening a store a month,” Pace explained. In its heyday, Rose’s had 250 stores across the Southeast.
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