The southeast corner of the intersection of Main and North Boundary Streets was referred to as “the Elliott Corner” in the April 3, 1958 issue of the Shelby County Times-Herald. The expression appeared in an announcement of the recent opening of a new Standard Oil service station at this location. Long-time residents of Montevallo would recognize this lot as being where the elegant old two-story Elliott home stood for many years previously. It had been torn down the year before to make way for, by that time, the shiniest and most up-to-date new gas station to ever come to town.
According to the article, the Standard Oil Co. now owned the property and the bookkeeper for Lovelady Motor Co., Mr. John Stephens, had recently leased the business as an investment and appointed an Alabama College student as his “operator-in-charge.”
Miss Eloise Meroney’s very useful local history “Montevallo – The First One-Hundred Years” includes an interesting diagram from 1880 of the structures then standing along Main Street. At this location, she indicates that the old house had at that time been called the Williams House and then later was known as the Killingsworth House, and finally the Elliott House.
The Elliott family was known in Montevallo for their work in the grocery business. Mr. L.D. Elliott went to work for J.A. Brown as the operator of his Montevallo Grocery Co. when Mr. Brown moved his business from next to the railroad depot into the old George Kroell building in 1932. A few years later and just prior to the beginning of World War II, Mr. Elliott went out on his own and opened a grocery store directly across the street from his house on the Elliott corner.
The Standard Service Station went through several ownership and management changes during the years it was open, with Mr. Spencer Plant ultimately taking over and operating the business until it closed in the 1970’s.
The building stood unoccupied for a time before it was modified to make way for the new “Shelby Bank” around 1980. When a series of mergers produced the now ubiquitous and well-known Regions Bank in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, they soon took over the Shelby Bank building and converted it into one of the many branches that are available to their customers in the Shelby and Jefferson County area as well as state-wide.
Regions still occupies the old “Elliott Corner” today, providing banking services to citizens of Montevallo as well as University of Montevallo faculty and students who may hail from other places but do their banking with Regions wherever they may be.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of Montevallo Historical Society, for this information!
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