STORY TELLERS
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History of M. Jones & Son's (Post Office & General Store) by: Chris Jones March 23, 2005 (To see a picture of the store, click on "History of M. Jones & Son's" above. To send Chris an e-mail, click on his name.) In the fall of 1935, the Peabody Coal Company employed Uncle Roy Jones as a miner and his brother Milton was working on the tipple crew at mine number 31 at Kenvir. It was during this fall season that Uncle Roy and several other young men from Dizney were squirrel hunting in Rocky Hollow on Cranks Creek when uncle Roy accidentally shot himself in the arm with a shotgun. He was crossing a wire fence. He had placed the gun on a rock as he crossed, the gun slipped off the rock and hit the hammer, which caused the gun to fire spattering the shot pellets into the underside of Uncle Roy's arm. He was carried out by his friends and family to a parked vehicle. I believe uncle George was with him. He was taken to the old Harlan Hospital where he was treated. His arm was in serious shape, and after it showed signs of gangrene it was amputated just below the shoulder. This unfortunate incident, of course, ended Uncle Roy's career in the mines. My grandfather Milt had for sometime wanted to get away from working on the tipple, and since he was still at home and single, he had been saving his money. Somewhere in the months of 1936 Roy and Milt decided to jump in the ring and open their own business. Their father owned two lots of property near the church in "Punkin Center" and he deeded it to them and helped them get a start. Uncle George Jones, an accomplished carpenter, help build the building that would house Jones Brothers store. By 1937 they were in business full swing, and were quite successful in their venture. Peabody Coal Company was operating two mines at Kenvir, just below Dizney, and had hundreds on the payroll. The Black Mountain camps and every hollow in Dizney was full of houses and families. The Great Depression was ending and business was good. Jones Brothers was a true old-time general merchandise store and sold about everything one needed. They sold groceries, meats, dry goods, shoes, hardware, feed and seed, furniture, as well as coal oil (kerosene) and gasoline. The Peabody mines issued scrip as a credit system for their employees and this scrip could be traded at the coal company commissary for goods and services. Jones Brothers also took the Black Mountain scrip, but at a 10% discount. In other words, a dollar in scrip bought a dollar of merchandise at the commissary, but only 90 cents at Jones store. The miners a lot of times still saved money though, because the commissary prices were much higher than the independent stores. In the early months of 1950 the U.S. Post Office at Dizney was removed by the postal officials from Pace's store, which also had been in operation for many years at Dizney. One particular day, two post office officials came into Jones Brothers store and told my grandfather, Milt, they were moving the post office and needed a place to put it. My grandfather, who happened to be in the store, was sworn in as postmaster. The post office was moved to Jones Brothers store and this naturally help to attract more business as people called for mail. In about June of 1950 a terrible set back occurred when Jones Brothers store burnt to the ground. It destroyed everything, and all was a complete loss. The cause of the fire has never been known. It was thought that maybe the wiring got too hot, as it had been a cloudy day, and the old droplights had been on all day. Roy and my grandfather had some insurance and they were back in business the next day. The feed room, which was not attached to the main store, survived the fire, and they went to work selling groceries the next day in the feed room. I remember my grandfather said someone woke him up and told him of the fire, he proceeded to go up and wake up Roy and tell him everything we have is burning up. My grandmother said you could hear the canned goods and shells (ammunition) going off and exploding in the fire. The next day, they waited for the cash register to cool off to get the change out of it. The pennies were melted together. The mail was delivered to my grandparents' living room at the home where I now live. For a while my grandparents' living room became the U.S. Post office at Dizney. The Locust Grove Baptist Church at Dizney had hired Pope and Cawood Lumber and Builders at Harlan Kentucky in 1947 to build a new church house. In 1950 they were chosen by Jones Brothers to rebuild a new store building. It is the same building standing yet today. In about 1951 Jones Brothers moved in their new modern building and continued their business. Post office boxes and counters had been purchased from the old Evarts post office building and were now put into use at Dizney. In 1958 coal prices dropped and Peabody Coal closed their mines and their doors at Kenvir. 800 men were out of work. The industrial north called with the promise of work and job security. Hundreds of families left the hills of home and sought a better future in the northern states. Business declined, and it was just impossible for two families to make a living out of the store business. In 1960 Jones brothers dissolved and my grandfather bought Uncle Roy's share out. It was, of course, the fact that my grandfather was postmaster I would say that played the biggest choice of him retaining the store and Roy selling out. Uncle Roy went on and got employment with Kentucky Utilities and retired from there. It proved very successful for him. My grandfather operated the store on, and it remained in our family until about 1983. My grandfather had been in the store business for around 46 years when he retired. Different people in the family worked in the store through the years including Roy and Milt, Ann and Mellie, Harold, Brenda, and Charlotte, Herman and Sue, Aunt Thelma, Beckham, Virgil, Sandra, and myself, Chris. There might be some I forgot. Today I have the original store books through the years, and several old items from the store. One of my most cherished items is an old glass Stewart's candy jar that is the only item that came out of the original store that burned in 1950. It just happened to be at my grandfathers' house when the fire broke out. My grandmother had a few days before, put the candy into another container and took the glass jar home. She had washed it up and used it to make pickled eggs, as it was just the right size. I still have it today. I also have one of the old benches out of the store. There were three originally and they sat just in front of the post office. I have seen these seats full every morning as the crowds of old timers gathered to wait for the mail to arrive. They are all gone now. I feel as though I have had a great privilege to have been just old enough to clearly remember the store, the post office in the corner, and the old timers coming in every morning. It was a way of life that had remained unchanged, and I was allowed to see it, just before it vanished. I did not know then that it would all so soon be gone. How I wish so many times I could have captured it on film before its demise, but as we often do, we put things off to long. |
