I've already shared with you an old photo of one of the Sole Owner stores Clarence Saunders opened in Memphis. Well, here's another one, and I'm just as stumped by the location of this one.
Just a few weeks ago, when I wrote about Memphis entrepreneur Clarence Saunders’ oddly named “Sole Owner” grocery stores, I included an old photograph of one of these establishments. And I lamented (cried, whined, complained — you know how I can be) that I had been unable to determine the precise location of that particular store.
I obsess about things like this, because I love then-and-now photos, and like to compare how buildings (and other places) looked THEN, and how they look NOW.
But the photo of the store in my original column (important — it's different from the one above) gave me nothing to go on since it was a closeup of the store window. No street signs were shown in that photo, no street address was visible, and nearby (or adjacent) buildings had been cropped from the photograph.
Fortunately, the Lauderdale Library contains a photograph of another Sole Owner store — the one you see here — apparently taken at the same time by the same photographer. So I examined this image carefully. Surely there was a clue to the location of this store, at least?
Once again, I was mystified why the store didn’t seem to have any street numbering, and once again, I was annoyed that no street signs were visible. For this image, the photographer had stood farther back, seemingly across the street, so at least you could see that this store was located on a corner somewhere, and — wait a minute — were those trolley tracks in the street? Hmmm, that's a clue.
But a careful look revealed an even more definite clue to the location. At the extreme far right, you can barely make out some words painted on the bricks, which was apparently advertising the business next door. According to the sign, this establishment offered “Stoves and Ranges.” What’s more, at the very top of that building, look VERY closely. There's another sign, and the first letter “L” is visible!
You can read "Stoves and Ranges" painted on the bricks at the right. Look very closely at the sign mounted just below the roofline, and you can see an "L." For Lindahl Hardware, I presume.
Now, I had already mentioned that Saunders had opened more than 20 Sole Owner stores across Memphis. But how many other establishments — different businesses owned by other people I mean — started with the letter “L” and sold “stoves and ranges?”
A quick look through city directories from the 1920s revealed very few companies that sold “stoves and ranges” in Memphis, and only one started with an “L”: Lindahl Hardware Company.
All I had to do, then, was look up Lindahl Hardware in those same city directories, and that would give me the street where this particular Sole Owner store was located.
Now, there was just one minor problem. Lindahl actually had four locations in Memphis. Which was the store (barely) shown here in the Sole Owner photo?
It was easy enough to find the addresses of the four Lindahl Hardware stores, since their ads provided customers with their locations:
1351 Madison Ave.
2129 Young Ave.
230 East McLemore Ave.
3421 Summer Ave.
So then, using the street listings in the city directories, all I had to do was find the store that also had a Sole Owner right next door. Easy!
And ... I couldn’t do it. I failed.
Not a single Lindahl store was located immediately to the north, south, east, or west of a Sole Owner store. Oh sure, there might be a Sole Owner store nearby, maybe way down the block, or sometimes even across the street. But this old photograph clearly showed the two businesses side-by-side, and yet no city directory listed them that way.
I scrutinized these directories, year by year. Actually, I didn’t have to look through very many of them. It seems both the Sole Owner stores and the Lindahl Hardware chain remained in business for only a few years, around 1930.
Even so, once again I have failed. I have two perfectly good, clear, vintage photographs of Sole Owner stores, and I can’t identify the locations of either one.
I think I’ll just lie back in my La-Z-Boy, with a case of Kentucky Nip, and brood about this. While I'm doing that, here's a 1930s ad for Saunders' new (but short-lived) chain of groceries.
