Several ran the cafe downtown

Mrs. Winnie Shadley, with help of her daughters, Winnie and Marion, continued to operate the cafe. Then, in October 1945, she married Don Johnson, and he and Irene went on running the cafe for a couple of years.

Flarence Ella Bolain thinks it was around 1946 or 1947 when her parents, Dewey and Una Buttry ran the cafe with help from their daughter-in-law, Mildred Buttry.

Mrs. Bolain also spoke to another proprietor of a cafe there, Pansy Gastineau now of Springdale. With help from her mother-in-law, Geneva Gastineau, she operated the business from October 1962 to August 1963.

Mrs. Gastineau reportedly sold the business to Mr. and Mrs. Howard Thomas. The Thomases’ daughter, Cynthia Browning, said that her mother was joined by Mrs. Howard Greene in the operation. Later, Mrs. Greene withdrew from the business, and Mrs. Thomas continued to run it for maybe a year or so.

Earlier, from 1949 to 1951, the cafe was operated by Phil and Florence Beguin. Their daughter, Jenita Prophet, said that her father also ran a real estate business there for Bob Vogt in the back of the cafe. The family resided in the back of the cafe, and she pointed out that this was in the part of the building that later housed the Pea Ridge Fire Department.

At the same time, she said, there was an apartment upstairs in which various families resided; And Charlie Tetrick’s feed store was in the southeast corner of the building.

The cafe was a popular place for teenagers to hang out, she said. They played music and pool there.

Just how many operated a cafe there is not known, nor was the writer able to contact some who might have known more. For instance, it was mentioned that Retha Jefferson and the late Pearl Miller might once have had the cafe, as well as Ruth and Hubert Follett and Ruth and Frank Dean. Records do show that Oct. 26, 1956, Eula Campbell, a daughter of Charlie Tetrick and his wife issued a Warranty Deed to Roy W. Taylor and Nada Z. Taylor, his wife, for the property.

During the Taylors’ proprietorship, it is said that they cut a door between the two buildings, whereas, it had been a separate wall between the two parts of the structure previously. In the east building, they established a banquet room. The cedar wainscoting in that room still was in use in what had been the Council Room until recently. Just how long the Taylors ran the cafe is not now known.

Editor’s note: This article is fourth in a five-part series. It was written by Billie Jines, former editor of The TIMES of Northeast Benton County. It is the history of the building which served as City Hall for many decades prior to the recent construction of the one on Weston Street.