Who can forget the smell of bread baking? When I interviewed Lucille Tharp on her hundredth birthday, she reminisced about her husband Kenneth and his job at Moore’s Bakery, starting when they married and moved from Khuntown to Waynesburg in 1943. Shopping local for local products was the norm back then and fresh baked bread, buns and treats of every kind were once the order of the day, whether made at home or brought home from the local bakery.
Greene County kid Dave Clark remembers “Beanie Church delivered their [Moore’s] products to Ivy Church’s store in Rogersville. When that little old bread truck pulled up to Ivy’s, we knew treat time had arrived.”
Clark and others joined me on Greene Connections Facebook page when I stopped by to see if I could find an old photo of the bakery where the Tharp brothers once worked. There were no photos I could track down of the bakery in its heyday or even afterwards when the building became Bell’s Wholesale in the late 1970s. What I found instead were a lot of glorious memories of its delicious treats.
When Moore’s Bakery closed in 1967, it was the unofficial end of that era of locally produced baked goods as corporate chains brought their brands to grocery shelves nationwide.
The building may be lost to time but thanks to Shannon Henry’s sleuthing, here’s an ad for Moore’s Barbecued Bread “Heat it right in the foil bag on your barbecue grill” with recipes on the bag for “Cheese, Onion and Garlic Bread”
Sarah Matthews, who still lives across the road on Elm Street, remembers using the store’s branded bun bags as liners as a kid for her rubber boots in the winter. “It was wonderful to wake in the morning to the smell of bread baking, but we didn’t buy it. My mom baked all of ours and I liked hers better!”
Paula Herman tells us that dad Stanley H. Gump worked at Moore’s “early on, and his favorite [were] the fresh glazed rings.”
Cousin Anna Baker stopped by to add, “My dad was Kenneth Tharp’s brother. I used to go there with mom.”
Candi Leathers remembers the other bakery—Hoges, on Maiden Street. An article on file at Cornerstone Genealogy tells us it was one of the city’s oldest firms, opening in 1903 and run by Hiram and Albert Hoge. “Only the highest quality materials are used and all workmen are true artists. Twenty-two men are employed, most are heads of families and supporting about 65 people, all residents of Waynesburg and nearby sections.”
When Connie Hart texted in with a recipe—not for Moore’s banana flips, but for the secret sauce for the all beef hotdogs from Jimmies Lunch, I was finally able to find a fine old photo for this story.
Jimmie’s Lunch was gutted by fire early Saturday morning, October 30, 1976, but this iconic image from the late 1920s is a classic.
A newspaper clipping of it is on file at Cornerstone. It can also be found on the cover of the book Images of America—WAYNESBURG, by Glenn Toothman and Candice Buchanan.
The newspaper clipping tells us Jimmies Lunch was in the building at the corner of Morris and High Street and the billboard beside it conceals the empty lot where the Edsonia Theater once stood. “Beyond it are the Davis and Kendall meat market, the A. & P., a shoe shine shop, Burns store [where Sherman Williams now is] and the Waynesburg Post Office. The café sign is for the Hess Café, which was located in the basement of the Burns building.”
Superimposed over it all is the recipe for the sauce that made the hot dogs from this lunchroom eatery (that also served beer) the stuff of legend. Thanks Connie and Wayne!
Feel free to make it up for your next family gathering that includes folks who remember grabbing their dogs through the side window at Jimmie’s Lunch!