CORNERING THE CHARM MARKET

Historic Linden building benefits from work to beautify downtown

Another Linden building is getting a facelift—or at least a removal of wrinkles.

The historical corner building on North Main and state Highway 11 East that is now Conn Auto is having its eastside wall first repaired and then prepared as it participates in Linden Main Street’s facade improvement program.

Conn store owner Ricky Conn is eager to begin and strong in his opinions about efforts to beautify Linden’s downtown.

“Make things look nice, that’s how things grow,” the young business-owner said. “Before Walmart in Atlanta came, this whole square was booming, every shop taken. But with personal service out of the shopping picture, now no one wants to participate (in store ownership). If we can get it back the way it was when you could pull up to a store and receive service, things will grow.”

Conn added he’s not saying all modern progress is bad.

“It’s just what’s happened,” he said. “We business owners have got to learn what to do about it. Beautifying the area is the right direction.”

Painter and general contractor Larry Cathy had risen early before sunup Saturday to be downtown and repair the damaged wall.

“I wanted to be out of people’s way and have the work done,” Cathy said. “And I didn’t know what I’d run into with the repair. The stucco had been applied right over the brick, so you had to make it all match. I used a mixture that was more a mortar than stucco.”

Cathy also painted the parapet roof area. He expects he has another week of work to finish the wall’s preparation.

The building became Conn Auto after Ricky’s father, Jimmy Conn, began work in 1953 for Caver Auto at another location on North Main. In 1974, Conn bought the business from Caver and renamed it Conn Auto. Some years later, he bought the Finley-Morris building and moved Conn Auto to its present location.

Allie Anderson, manager of Linden Main Street, said that facade improvement grants are made in cooperation with the Linden Economic Development Corporation to assist downtown business and property owners who’ve started improving their frontage and may need help in continuing.

“This is our second facade improvement grant,” Anderson said. “In the fall, Kerry and Erin Wells got a grant to redo the front of their building on West Houston.”

The facade grants are part of a larger program of upgrading downtown Linden following a plan developed by Texas Main Street. TMS officials visited Linden and spent a day making a file on each property along the main street area that would consider upgrading.

If we can get it back the way it was when you could pull up to a store and receive service, things will

grow.” — Ricky Conn,

Conn Auto store owner

The early photos I have show the building in the years after the 1908 hurricane, which destroyed three walls. We think it was stuccoed over because some of the brick used in repair didn’t match.

The stucco gave it a more beautiful

appearance.”

— Sue Lazara, Linden historian

Local historian Sue Lazara explained more about the Conn Auto building because her father, Alonzo Morris, was once in partnership with Tom Finley in the building as Finley-Morris Grocery.

The building, she believes, goes back to perhaps 1890 or no later than 1902 and was almost destroyed in the 1908 tornado. It was rebuilt is the next two years and is now the oldest commercial brick building in Linden.

“The early photos I have show the building in the years after the 1908 hurricane, which destroyed three walls,” Lazara said. “We think it was stuccoed over because some of the brick used in repair didn’t match. The stucco gave it a more beautiful appearance. And perhaps the sloping parapet on the east side was added at that time.”

Lazara said she thinks the building was Linden First National Bank’s first location. It was then owned by other business people including Harris-Duncan-Fant Mercantile before being sold to Tom Finley as a grocery in 1940.

“When my father Alonso Morris got back from World War II, Tom Finley—we knew him as ‘Uncle Tom’— took my father in as a partner in the late 1940s,” Lazara said.

The building has been central to downtown Linden’s appearance, especially in having a clock at its highest front point that would keep the public informed.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ The Conn Auto building at the corner of Highway 11 West and North Main is one of Linden’s most historic and is said to be downtown’s oldest brick building.

■ ABOVE:Ricky Conn, left, and Larry Cathy are good friends, especially in their work of improving the looks of downtown Linden. Cathy is a parttime employee at Conn Auto as well.

Staff photos by Neil Abeles ■ LEFT: Painterartist Larry Cathy is looking at the building wall he has just repaired where stucco had fallen away. The building is Conn Auto supply in Linden.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ The sign work announcing Music City Texas Theater on the Conn Auto supply building in Linden is being repaired. Also, the transom windows are being opened on the historic building.