THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - VOL. 101 FOOD
EVERYBODY LOVES A BURGER - For more than half of the 20th Century, there was a place where people in Dublin could grab an burger and gulp it down with a Coca-Cola. It was not until 1953, when a Dairy Queen was erected on East Jackson. Although the original building was razed and move away from the street, The Dairy Queen is Dublin’s oldest franchise burger place with seventy plus years of continuous service.
I’LL TRY THAT NEW THING - When people crossed the Oconee River into East Dublin, the first fast food place they saw was Gus’s Pizza. Gus sold traditional southern dishes of fried and barbecue chicken along with steaks, and country ham with gravy. Italian foods were a specialty at Gus’s place. Of course there was spaghetti, really an American dish, Although they came frozen from the Piggly Wiggly, Gus guaranteed a lip-smacking pizza pie, a year before the franchising of Pizza Huts across the Midwest. It would be the early 1970s before a Pizza Hut came to Dublin. Two years later, the Chuck Wagon on Telfair Street, offered the city’s first pizza burger. Dublin Courier Herald, July 23, 1957, March 21, 1959.
THE FIRST TRUE CANDY STORE - Kids and adults have loved candy as long as there was candy. The sugar sweet delights were usually purchased in dry good stores, drug stores, and a few restaurants. Louis Leopold sought to change that. In 1905, Leopold put up a primitvely built stand on the northwestern corner of the courthouse square, which is today a county parking lot.
Leopold offered fruits, home made confections, sodas, and even canary birds (for pets and not to eat.) When in season, Leopold sold grapes, raisins, celery, oysters and fish. Early in the next decade, a Mr. Fouts opened a candy store in the Hick’s Building, directly across the square. After World War II, actual candy stores disappeared in Dublin. With mass production against the mom and pop operators, candy was primarily sold in department, grocery and drug stores until convenience stores began to pop up around the county. Dublin Courier Dispatch, September 29, 1905, September 15, 1911.
GIVE ME TWO BURGERS, FRIES, AND A COKE - The first restaurant to advertise hamburgers and hot dogs to eat there or take out was the New Dublin Lunchroom, operated by J.C. Leverette on West Jackson Street in 1937. The New Cafeteria was the fist to advertise french fries in 1947. Dublin Courier Herald, June 3, 1937, October 31, 1947.
EVERYBODY LOVES ICE CREAM - Even before the 20th Century, making ice cream was a laborious yet boring process. You had to make the delicious dessert by mixing all of the ingredients by hand and turning a crank of seeming endless minutes.
A.K. Hawkins opened the first ice cream factory in Dublin in 1911. Hawkins opened his place in the plant of the Georgia Pepsi Cola plant in southern Dublin. Once started, the refrigerated machine turned out a constant supply of ice cream, much to the delight of those had been calling a drug store and ordering their ice cream. Hawkins’ machine would make 40 gallons per day or about 2000 gallons in the summer season. Laurens County Herald, June 13, 1912.
DOUGHNUTS TO DOLLARS - W.H. Tow brought something new to Dublin. In 1904, Tow bought the O.K. Bakery and the Variety Bakery and opened his own commercial bakery. Tow sold breads, cookies, cakes, pies and doughnuts. Dublin’s longest surviving bakery, Williamson’s traces it roots back to Benson’s ( a chain bakery out of Athens) and the Blue Bird (founded in 1932 by B.F. and M.E. Cochran) bakeries. Merle Williamson bought Benson’s in 1966 and turned it into a Dublin icon for more than 55 years. His grandson Perry Williamson, took over the family business in the 2010s. Dublin Times, September 17, 1904.
COTTON PICKIN’ KID - D.J. Cowart of Emanuel County was a regular thirteen-year-old boy. To pick up some spending money, D.J. picked cotton on the farm of Allen Thompson. On August 27, 1877, D.J., who tipped the scales at 64 pounds picked 177 pounds of cotton. The next day, D.J. gathered an even two hundred pounds. In two days the teenager gathered almost six times his weight in the fluffy cotton bolls. Columbus Enquirer, September 19, 1878.
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