We should take landmarks seriously

John Forrest, Clinton
Letter to the Editor

January 04, 2007 09:55 am

— I was amazed by the photo taken in the 1950s of the people gathered at St. John’s Episcopal Church. To the south was a gas station, which we were racking our brains to remember. It was Carl Bach’s American Petroleum, which had an eagle and the word Ranger on it. It was probably the first big word I ever learned.
Two days before Christmas I rode with a friend down Camanche Avenue. He used to work at the railroad. We drove down the street pointing out buildings that used to house a lot of businesses that were popular from the 1960s into the 1970s and into the 1980s.
We drove past the Sunset Inn, which has a sign advertising “color television.” Past the building there was Kentucky Fried Chicken (it used to be the Golden Point). Then we drove by where Paetz Super Valu was where Farm and Fleet was once located, where B&J pizza was, where the first Pizza Hut was, the first McDonald’s, Chuck Sloppy’s tavern was located (late 1970s), where Sandy’s hamburgers was, Elmwood Dairy, Sanitary Farm Dairy, the Holiday/Erickson gas station, Derby gas station, U Pump, Green Basket (later the A&W drive-in), and the Nelson’s Cashway Lumber Mart stood. Then we drove where Kmart and EconoFoods (a Nash Finch company) were. What they all have in common is they are all gone.
I think my friend who worked for the railroad was nostalgic about the railroad yard and its metal buildings because they are likely to disappear, too, within the next few years. If Amtrak were to locate here where we would service it? Even a lot of those businesses at those strip malls keep changing like musical chairs. If any place was typical 1960s-1970s Americana, it had to be Camanche Avenue with its unique mixture of businesses.
One day while taking a humanities course in college, the professor (if it existed or was in a book, he knew it) asked me about two landmarks in Clinton. One was the old Salvation Army site (in a former long-gone drug store location on North Fourth Street) and two, Smith Brothers General Store. Curiously, a year or two later while shopping for classic 1960s 45s (most of them beat up), I encountered the same professor going into the Salvation Army. He was looking for (what else?) rare and obscure books.
My point is we don’t seem to take our landmarks and businesses in this town seriously. Patronize them while we have then because once they’re gone, they’re gone.