After completing his purchase of Pat Kroell’s new building on Main Street in 1936, it was not long before Stanley White invited customers to visit his new hardware store in the same location (today 707 & 709 Main Street) where Kroell had done business for only a few years. Pat Kroell was soon settled and offering groceries and dry goods in his newly constructed building just behind White Hardware that faced Middle Street (this is the Montevallo Makers building today at 720 Middle Street). So both businesses survived the turmoil of moving and began to serve the community.
But by 1940, Mr. White saw an opportunity to rent out the basement space of his building to a bowling alley, of all things. This is the current location of Walker Upholstery (716 Middle Street) and its entrance is accessed from the street by way of a narrow alley behind Smitherman’s Pharmacy.
Mr. Tommie Latham, a native of Montevallo whose family had been merchants in town for many years, was the driving force and “proprietor” of this new form of recreation for Montevallo’s townspeople.
These times were the days before the automatic pin-setting machines that became commonplace in the 1950’s & 1960’s, so bowlers had to wait for an attendant to clear off downed bowling pins or completely re-set the ten pins by hand before rolling another ball.
The Bowling Alley was open to the public every day and newspaper accounts indicate that bowling became quite the rage in town, with leagues springing up and keen competition developing among the teams and participants.
In 1948, another basement-based business, W.C. Weems Insurance Agency relocated to Middle Street.
For reasons known only to him, Mr. Weems set up his offices in an unused and dank space in the basement of the Wilson’s Drug Co. building. He had previously worked from the much more inviting street-level store-front of the Masonic building a block away on Main Street and had ably served Montevallo as an agent for several insurance companies since the early 1930’s.
The door to Mr. Weems’ office was the left-hand entrance to the drug store basement from Middle Street. The right-hand door led into a full basement that the drug store used for storage. W.C. Weems ran his insurance business here for many more years and seemed to continue to have plenty of customers in spite of his claustrophobic working conditions and less-than-welcoming dungeon-like office entrance.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of Montevallo Historical Society, for putting together these images and information!