West Jefferson in Days Gone By - series 80 by Charlie Miller
____September 24, 1879 – Quinn Bradley has purchased Dr. Beach, the vacant lot opposite the Post Office for $750.00 in which he will build a fine building to be used as a drug store. (This was Lot No. 31 on the south side of W. Main St. just east of Bambino’s Pizza. Quinn Bradley was born in 1843, when the Civil War broke out he enlisted in Co. E 84th O. V. I. For 100 days and the following year re-enlisted in Co C 2nd Ohio Cavalry and served until the end of the war. He was a Trustee of the Pleasant Hill Cemetery and also served as Clerk of the 1st Baptist Church. He married Catherine Zinn and they had one daughter, Elta. On January 14, 1893, Elta married W. H. (Harvey) Pence. She died in a car accident in Boyle, KY, on March 3, 1947. Harvey Pence was the wealthiest man in West Jefferson, and the first to own an automobile. He died on December 22, 1959, at age 91.
____January 28, 1890 – Gregg and McCoy have opened a harness shop on Center Street.
____March 23, 1881 – We are informed that the Baptist Church made its pastor a donation of eatables to the amount of $20.00 and then deducted said amount from his salary. Will some brother rise and explain?
____June 22, 1881 – Ben Hoe is engaging in erecting a mammoth brick building establishment. Byron Fellows will also erect a brick business on his property on Main Street. (Hoe’s building sat on the northeast corner of Main and Chester Streets. It was torn down in 2021 and for years it held Loveless Appliances. Fellows' property was Lot No. 27 and was jointly owned by him and his father William W. Fellows. This lot is now occupied by the Huntington Bank 2023)
____July 6, 1881 – The Madison County Telephone Exchange was incorporated in London.
____March 8, 1882 – James Millikin will erect a two-story frame business block 30’ X 110’ on the site of the property he now owns. It will be occupied by a hardware store.
____March 8, 1882 – Dr. John Colliver has put a frame business block on the site of his old residence near the Burns & Weber grocery store. Also, a number of telephones were set up in Jefferson in 1882. (Dr. John Colliver was born in 1841 in Kentucky, his father Jefferson T. Colliver was also a doctor in West Jefferson, born in 1814 he died in 1865 and is buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery. Dr. Colliver and Quinn Bradley both owned part of lot No. 31 currently the lot just east of Bambino’s Pizza)
_____1882 – The Commercial Bank of West Jefferson was organized in1882 by Ashton A. Gregg and Dr. Jefferson T. Colliver. (This bank was in the building that still stands on the northwest corner of Main and Walnut Streets. It has housed many businesses over its 154 years (2023) this is where the West Jefferson Building & Loan started. Later it became Jefferson Savings, then First Merit Bank, and then Huntington Bank.