Back in 2006 I posted a piece about the old Miller & Brewer Company that existed in Downtown Harriman, TN for years. The post concerned the old fluoroscopes that businesses selling shoes used to utilize to make the perfect fit. CLICK HERE for that story!
This is a follow-up to that story to report that the 100 year-old building burned today; actually it's still burning as I write! It's sad, yes, but the building was an abandon ruin. Since it could not be saved, as some of us wanted, maybe as apartments, it needed to go.
There will never be another Miller & Brewer, or any kind of department store in its place. Apartments with a possible restaurant downstairs, is about all it could have ever been. Yet some guy had held it in siege for many years; storing what other communities ran him out of town over. Who knows what all that may have been?
Anyway, more than likely, there will never ever be anything else in that space. It would be a great parking area for downtown, but that seems almost as unlikely. There will never be a reason to put something there until some young enterprising man or woman thinks up a great idea and puts it into action.
Harriman is running out of young idea people...everyone has either gotten too old to carry on, or moved away where there are better opportunities. Towns like Harriman were killed by Walley-World kind of stores and the loss of local industry. So, it sits slowly fading away awaiting young ideas.
Here are the sad photos from today's fire. Just a couple of hours after these were shot, the front wall caved inward. The rest will follow tonight or tomorrow, but some contractor will level the rest.
The slate will be cleaned...waiting for a bright idea!
2 comments:
Beautiful pictures. Sad story. Too bad, but there you go. Whoever originally came up with that slogan "Change is good" was a dumb ass.
Agreed!
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