Several years ago, a reader approached me with a rather simple request — or so I thought.
Janis Shirley sent a photograph (below) of a rather distinctive-looking building, carrying a huge sign that read VICTORY LITTLE SUPER MARKET, and wondered where this business was located. It had been her grandfather's grocery store, you see, and she had always heard that the building was on Chelsea or Ayers, and needed my help.
I ended up calling this original column "Well, I'm Stumped" because every part of it baffled me. First of all, I didn't really understand name of the grocery. "Victory Little" simply made no sense to me. And then, despite the unusual name, I could find no listing for it after rooting through years and years of city directories.
The building shown in the photograph even carried the date — 1934 — rather prominently across the top, but no Little Victory Supermarket — or any variation of that name — showed up in city directories from 1934 onward.
Looking up the business under her grandfather's name was no help either. I began to wonder if the photo was even taken in Memphis, but Janis assured me it was. But I could find no trace of it.
And that's how things stood until recently, when another devoted reader, Phoebe Moore, came to my rescue. While looking through the "Dig Memphis" digital photo archives of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, she came across the photograph you see above, and she thought it looked familiar. And sure enough, she realized: This was the Victory Little Super Market building — as it looked in 1955, when it was home to the Hutton and Hutton farm implement company.
More important, as far as I was concerned, she found the location. It wasn't on Chelsea or Ayers, but was located at 2053 Union.
You can compare the identical architectural details, especially the "1934" marker at the roofline. There's no question this is the same building.
And what's there today? Well, for years it was a Regions Bank branch, but now it's a vacant lot.
Thank you, Phoebe, for your fine detective work?
(But I'm still stumped by that "Victory Little" name ...)
