By Michelle Bates
An “eyesore” in downtown Arcadia is finally getting some TLC (tender loving care). Two couples went in together and purchased the old Junction Building, originally The Commercial Bank, in downtown Arcadia on the corner of Myrtle Street and N. Railroad Ave.
Clint Faulk, one of the four owners of the building, said after discussions, they still don’t know what they want to do with the building.
“We just want to clean it up,” he said. “For right now, that’s our goal. We have some ideas that we’re kicking around to beautify this whole strip. If we’d gone the way of the nonprofit and paid all that money plus the purchase of the building, that would have wiped us out.”
Melanie Colvin, co-owner, said she’d expressed interest in the building as long ago as 2022, but it was not for sale at that time. Previous owner Emily Moon had plans for it, but it just didn’t come to fruition. Colvin said there was serious interest in the building, and one prospective buyer was about to purchase it, which meant the four had to quickly figure out how to get it first.
“We had to move on it quick, and to do it through a nonprofit, we’d have had to set up a subsidiary company; if we’d put anything in there to make a profit, we couldn’t do it as a nonprofit, which would have taken time we didn’t have.”
“Arcadia is a walk-able shopping area, and you can park your car and walk to all the shops,” Colvin said. “Tara (Turner) swept in front of the building and pulled weeds there. It’s a nice little walk, and you had to walk by that building. Just cleaning it up is our primary target. You have people coming to visit and you want it to look nice and inviting.”
The building was destroyed by fire in 2013 when the owner dropped a pan of sausage resulting in a grease fire that quickly spread. The building was built in 1898, with its first business as The Commercial Bank. Since then, it has served as a general store, a barber college, a restaurant and others, but since the restaurant, it has been a charred mess inside, with no roof and the earth reclaiming portions of the building.
“It was intimidating at first, walking through all that stuff,” Turner said. “It’s still intimidating seeing the stuff hanging from the ceilings, the burnt part that hasn’t fallen, and trying to figure out how to get that cleaned up. I can only imagine with one person, but there are four of us, and we’re still talking about ideas on what to do. To be one person with that can be overwhelming.”
The cleanup began in early August, with crews disposing of several dumpster loads of debris in the front of the building. Over the weekend, crews began cleanup on the back end, where debris and charred infrastructure remain.
During the cleanup, several of the beams were saved to repurpose and reuse, Colvin said. The window frames were also saved, because they are hand-hewn with an ax. Colvin said with the posts of videos she’s made of the cleanup progress, many commenters talked about the history of the building, one being Sheriff John Ballance, who purchased his first rifle when it was Ledbetter’s. Others talked about their ties to the building.
“Jessie Smith contacted me on Messenger and said, ‘hey, you posted those deposit slips, and those were my great-grandfather’s and that’s who I’m named after,’” Colvin said, adding that she posted a photo on Facebook of several old deposit slips found among the debris in the building. The slips were dated in the 1920s, and while there was a space for cash or checks for deposit, there was also a slot for gold or silver.
Recently, the Arcadia Historic Railway District Association, of which Colvin is president and Faulk is vice president, paid roughly $2,400 to create a website of all the downtown businesses. Each business listed has its own website linked as well as Facebook/social media links. The website is http://www.antiquetrail.com.
“We’re on a website now with over 40,000 views,” Faulk said, adding that each store’s website was free to them. The company who created the website is also producing brochures, which will go to welcome centers all over the state, as well as in the stores listed.
“Arcadia used to be a mecca, and then it just went away,” Colvin said. “Over time, it’s been building back up, and you have to let people know it’s down here and available.”