CONNECTED TO OUR PAST Two Siblings and Eight Decades of Memories in Their Downtown Celina Square

Jane Cashon Willard and Bob Cashon are a brother and sister who were born and raised in Celina eight decades ago. Their Collin County roots run even deeper, as their first ancestors arrived here in 1856 and established a trading post on present-day US 380 where McKinney Trades Days now stands. Their father and mother came to Celina just after the Great Depression to settle down and raise a family.

To this growing family, Jane arrived in 1941 and Bob came along in 1945. They would grow up here, go to church here, and attend Celina schools. In this season of their lives, they enjoy serving at the Celina Heritage Museum where they scan and catalog every version of the Celina Record newspaper that was ever printed. They place the images of the paper online, so generations to follow can appreciate and love Celina in the same way that they cherish this place.

Occasionally, Jane and her “little brother” will drive around town or visit areas in Collin County where family members long ago settled, worked, and lived. On a cool, spring Friday morning, these Celina lifers agreed to meet at the historic Downtown Celina Square and share their fondest recollections of the people, places, and memories from around the Square laid out and built in 1910-11 by J. Fred Smith. For them, Smith (who went on to design Dallas’ Snyder Plaza—that city’s first shopping center—and with characteristics eerily similar to his masterwork in Celina) designed their happy place as children, and the Square is still the place they love to come and make memories with the generations that followed them.

What began over a cup of coffee with very little prompting there on the enclosed patio at Papa Gallo’s would turn into two hours of reminiscing. Ever so respectfully, Willard and Cashon would allow the other to share a story before they would add their memory of the same. Very rarely did their memories vary of a store or a shop owner. As if it were the glory days of the late 40s, 50s, and 60s, the eras of their fondest memories around the square, they went from building to building, block by block, and shared their memories of Downtown Celina. They talked about progress and the many changes that evolved in and around Celina through those years. They talked about changes they embraced and others that still are painful. They highlighted how places have changed, but they always came back to what mattered to them—the people.

They began with an overview of their general memories of the Downtown Square. In its heyday, they recall five grocery stores, two department stores, and multiple banks, pharmacies, and doctor’s offices. They pointed the three places where the post office was housed and told memorable stories of the old City Hall and the funeral home next door. They were wide-eyed when describing robberies and bad fires, and they cringed talking about the day the old Opera House finally had to come down for the sake of progress. One of them chuckled about the old jail and some late-night hours spent there, but that sibling was granted anonymity, for the sake of this article.

Before the foot-by-foot tour of the Square, Jane Willard made a very interesting statement about the Square that excites any entrepreneurial mind that would hear it. Quite to the contrary of the narrative that Celina was once a quiet town with little activity before recent growth, she recalled, “The amazing thing about Celina in that day, is that our City was totally independent. Mother would sometimes take us to McKinney before school started or at Christmas, but we had everything we needed right around this Square.”

“Everything anyone needed was here in Celina,” echoed Bob Cashon. “We had grocery stores, variety stores, dry goods, car dealerships, a movie theater, filling stations, and implement shops for farm equipment. You didn’t have to go to McKinney or anywhere else—everything you needed was here.” They shared that life revolved around the Square. Everyone came to the Square on Saturdays to shop, do laundry, or see a movie.

“No one ever came to town without driving the Square; it’s just what we did. It’s where everyone was, and you would always run into someone you wanted to see,” said Cashon.

The journey around the Square was, indeed, filled with plenty to see. On the north block of the Square, where Hey Sugar is now, two businesses existed in the building that used to have multiple floors. On the corner was a bank—one of Celina’s several banks. Next door was the Dyer & Jones Drug Store, and above that pharmacy was the office of Dr. W.H. Stalcup, DDS.

According to the siblings, someone once robbed that bank and lit it on fire on their way out the door. Speaking of fires, in the middle of that block stood Celina’s early movie theater, the Queen, (near where Annie Jack is today), and next to that was a dime store. A fire gutted that theater and the “new” theater was built further up the block toward Colorado Street.

“The Ritz movie theater sat right where the sidewalk still slopes today there beyond Billy Mayer’s grocery store,” remembered Jane Willard. “Everyone went to the movies here. They had a midnight show every Saturday night, and the grocery stores would all stay open, and the stores would store people’s groceries and keep them cold until they got out of the show.”

Beyond Mayer’s store, where the Grace Bridge Community Garden is now, was a croquet court where the men from around town would gather on Saturday evenings and test their skills while ladies visited, and children ran and played.

Across the street on the west side of the Square was another block of bustling commerce and trade. On the corner where the library and the parking surface are stood a three-story building that was once home to Celina’s Opera House. By the time Willard and Cashon remember, it had turned into a multi-level public and private office building. On the first floor were the post office (before it moved two other times before settling in its present location today) and another retail store. On the second floor was a sewing room. Willard shared that multiple women worked there and produced fine clothing that would be taken and sold to retail outlets in Dallas. On the third floor, they believed, is where the Masonic Lodge met before relocating decades later to their home across the Square.

Next door there was the Economy Store, a variety store of sorts. Moving on the way were the Wright’s and the original Perry and Rucker Grocery Store. On a very interesting note, walking towards the filling station that still stands at the corner, the next business was the Celina Frozen Food Locker, owned by a Mr. Skidmore. “You walked in, and there was a small store then in the back was a huge freezer room. People didn’t have freezers in that day, and they would rent locker space in that big freezer and keep their frozen goods there,” told Cashon. Later, the Biggerstaff’s Flower Shop would join the block along with another grocer. Where Shirley’s Hair Shop is now was a café. At the corner stands the gas station owned by Luke Johnson after the War then owned by Jess Bunch.

The lively south end of the current Square was home to the First Baptist Church, which had an education building where the new Huddleston Building sits now. There was an auto parts store that Luke Johnson had and later sold to Hack Vest. Johnson & Carter had a farm implements store near today’s Movement Church. Clint Carey Sr. and Jr. operated a grocery store where Buff City is now.

A highlight of the tour was learning that the Cameron Helms Funeral Home (later the Morgan-Scott Funeral Home) was in the space occupied by Toasted Walnut. “The way you knew someone had died and was ready for viewing is that Mr. Helms would put two orange cones out in front of the funeral parlor,” Willard said. “The funeral director didn’t have a staff to help him, so when he had prepared a body, he would go around to one of the stores on the Square and have one of the workers help him lift and place the body in the casket.”

Where the EDC and City offices are today was the old Celina City Hall building. In the front, the brother and sister recall the city offices and council meeting room. In the back of the building was the fire station. In the back corner of the truck bay was the jail, which was more like a cage with a toilet.

They vividly recalled a story from the 1930s that had been widely known around town. After an evening meeting at City Hall, Raymond Hamilton, a contemporary of Bonnie and Clyde, was in Celina to steal guns. He found a couple of City Marshals outside and was able to overtake them and their weapons. He locked them in a nearby rail car. He then went around the Square looking for more weapons, store by store. He got into the drug store and the hardware store and took theirs. When he would encounter other passers-by, he would lock them in the train car, as well. He got out of town and was later caught near Lake Dallas. The hostages were freed, and luckily, no one died that night.

Before exploring the east side of the Square, they noted the Nelson Hotel. Their memories of the historic building included a retail store downstairs and a boarding house upstairs, with a small cooking area out back. Where Bongo Beaux’s is now, was the second location of the post office after it relocated from the old opera house. That was also where the American Legion Hall had previously stood, a place where Celina folks often gathered and celebrated God, country, food, drinks, and friends.

On the south end of the east side of the Square was the town’s washeteria. Willard and Cashon recalled very few Celina residents owning washing machines. Inside this washeteria, moms would work at the big, metal, open-top washing tumblers and share the latest scoop while kids were left in the cars out front to wait. When the wash was complete, wet clothes would be taken home to hang outside on clotheslines.

Today, many would scoff at the idea of leaving children in a car on the Square; however, in those days, kids were safe.

Jane Willard affirmed, “There was a gentleman named Fred Jackson whom all the businesses around the Square would pay to sweep the sidewalks and streets and keep an eye on the Square. He carried an old house broom and worked all day long to keep the Square nice and keep a watch on the place.”

Moving north, Woodrow Kindle had a grocery store and the Hendon’s had a dry cleaner. A tiny Southwestern Bell Telephone Office was there with three operators and switchboards keeping calls coming and going to and from Celina’s shared phone lines. “I remember when we first got telephones, you would pick up the phone and tell the operator whom you wanted to call,” Willard recalled. “Our phone number was 300-J-1.” Up the sidewalk, Clifford McKnight had a grocery store, G.V. Bray had a dry goods store (furniture and appliances), and Bob Clutt had a shoe repair store. The Nelson Café sat on the corner where an old insurance is now being renovated (Nelson was the son of the hotel owner and brother of the high school principal).

Pecan Street was home to even more businesses in Celina’s bustling Downtown. There was another grocer in Willow House, and next door, Paul Norris had an appliance repair and TV store. The Tender’s location was home to Collin County’s second drive-in fast food place that would be packed after football games and other citywide events. “Bobcat Benny” Johnson had a barber shop and Dr. Collins had an office there.

Another filling station and the Kindle & Johnson lumber yard were just down the way.

Also on Pecan was Kissner’s Department Store, a café, a hardware store, and car storage. Bob Cashon explained, “Nearly all the streets were dirt and mud back then. People would store a nice car in town at the car storage garage and then drive to and from town in an older car. Our dad got stuck in the mud right by the old football stadium once and had to be pulled out.”

Change and growth are nothing new to the city and to those who have spent their lives here. These businesses came and went, but they always supported one another. Celina was a business-friendly place and a customer-friendly town. “I worked at the Perry and Rucker Grocery starting in about the sixth grade,” recalled Bob Cashon. “If a customer needed something we didn’t have, the grocer would give us money to run to another store and get it. My job was delivering groceries to people’s homes. I would gather their groceries and just walk in their house, put the groceries on the counter, and put the cold stuff in the ice box. They would leave money on their counter to pay for their order. No door in Celina was ever locked.”

Perhaps too many doors don’t stay unlocked these days, but the evolution of Downtown Celina and the Square has allowed the place to remain just as focused on businesses and as friendly as ever to those who spend time there. The buildings and the names above the doors have changed over the decades. In the 70s, for instance, the scuttlebutt around town was over the demolition of the old opera house building. Even then, people wondered, “How could the city let that go?”

Mrs. Willard remembers it well, “I still cringe every time I see the pictures of that building going down. It was such an iconic structure.” Yet, her tone quickly changed as the time together wrapped up. In what seemed like a few moments, the hours had passed.

Jane Willard and her brother celebrated the City they loved then and the City it has become. They shared their understanding of the natural growth of Dallas and Celina’s critical location in that northward expansion. It was nice when their dad was able to buy 160 acres off of Coit Road for $13,000 and have enough left over to dig a 720’ deep water well. But they said it is also nice to see young families and young faces once again filling their town. Mrs. Willard summed it best by saying, “Every time I come to the Square for lunch, I see several moms visiting and their children playing. That was me; that was my mom. And though their memories will be a little different than my memories, they are building their own memories right here in the same place. As long as that can continue, I am happy to see Downtown grow and evolve.”

Driving away, in the rear-view mirror stood the images of Willard and Cashon standing on the corner across from City Hall. Looking across toward the old Ritz Theater. Pointing. Smiling. Remembering. Loving their City.