LIVING
OUR OWN SLICE OF
AMERIC by NAT HARWELL
Henderson’s Restaurant shuttered its doors in 2017 after lifting the spirits of its loyal customers for more than half a century. Gone but not forgotten, it lives on in the hearts of those who made it such an iconic place. My first encounter with Newton County was in the summer of 1957. I remember, as a 6-year-old, riding in the back seat of our family’s 1953 Chevrolet BelAir with my younger brother as our family moved from Decatur to the tiny hamlet of Greensboro. The Chevy had no air conditioning, and because there was not yet an Interstate 20, we found ourselves on what seemed to be an unending two-lane blacktop called Highway 278. Suddenly, however, that two-lane roadway opened into a wide, multi-lane road as we entered Covington. I had no way of knowing that Highway 278 used to follow Clark and Floyd streets through the historic town square and that the wide-open four-lane was a recent development. What I did know was that our BelAir was pulling into the one building in a forest of pine trees where Newton Plaza stands. That building then, as it remains today, was Dairy Queen. Our dad had decided to give us all a break from the hot summer ride with an ice cream cone. Little did I realize that almost 20 years to that very day my wife and I would move to Newton County to put down roots and raise a family. As a 6-year-old, I had no idea that the four-lane with the Dairy Queen in the middle of a pine forest would one day be the major thoroughfare, populated with businesses ranging from fast food restaurants and automobile dealerships to shopping plazas. Nor did I realize that Clarence Reese Henderson Sr. and his wife, Frances Johnson Henderson, had made the momentous decision a year earlier to move their growing restaurant enterprise out to the country. The Annex, as it was first known, had operated on Emory Street since 1948, across from what is now Covington City Hall. Open from 5 a.m. until midnight, it served three meals a day to four tables and six counter stools and even featured curbside service. However, the booming business had outgrown the location by 1956, and after much encouragement from friends and customers, Clarence took the plunge and moved to a little grocery store he and Frances had purchased from Bryant Steele in 1954. It was located where Steele Road intersected with Highway 36, and it was there that Frances’ father, Curtis Johnson, had been running a little grocery store known as Johnson’s Trading Post. I knew
54 The Newton
