Black Business District

#1

Winchester Black Business District

Sign #1 at Heritage Park on W. Washington Street

West Washington Street, locally known as “Bucktown,” was the center of black businesses and social life in Winchester.

For more about Bucktown.

Recollections of Marie Gainey-Benton, 1993

During the time of dirt roads in the early 1920s, Thomas Williams ran a bus from Winchester to Lexington so black citizens could shop.
Also in the early 1900s black youth gathered at the Hippodrome, a skating rink on North Oliver St. Ruben Evans later bought the building and turned it into Joyland, which booked musical acts such as the Mills Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner. Joyland had a dance floor, booths and a concession stand.
In 1946, Samuel Carl Williams opened the Digest, a snack bar at the corner of Washington and First streets. Williams, former principal of Oliver School, would later serve as a city commissioner. The Digest remained a popular hangout for black teens until it closed in 1968.
In 1947, Thomas Miller opened the Miller Taxi Company on Church Alley. He later moved the business to the corner of Washington Street and Burns Avenue and added a service station. Emmett Menifee took over the cab stand when Miller switched to the retail liquor business in the late 1960s.
Plex Curry Gay owned a clothing shop at the corner of Burns Avenue and Washington Street. In the back of that building, Walter Newell operated a woodworking and cabinet shop, where his son, also named Walter Newell, worked.
Black citizens owned a barbershop, dry cleaning business and hotel on West Washington Street. On Maple Street near Washington were a black-owned movie theater and funeral home. Blacks also had a barbershop and confectionary on Main Street at one time.
At the corner of Fifth and Evans streets, Harvey Robinson owned a grocery store [and garbage business]. His daughter, Frances, later turned the building into a tailor shop.

For more about the business district.

The businesses shown on the map below are from residents’ memories of the late 1950s to the 1980s.

Map Key:

1. Tyler Banks American Legion Post 204

2. Boone’s Liquor Store, Maple Street Dispensary

3. Laine’s Hotel and Barbershop, Progressive Cleaners

4. Pool Room

5. Chester’s, Mary Gay’s Club 77, Chocolate Bar

6. Ethel Mae Curry’s Grill No. 1, Chester’s Cafe

7. P. J. Washington’s Grill No. 2, Helen Gentry’s Grill No. 2, The Club Room

8. P. J. Washington’s Restaurant and Bar, The Branch

9. Grandmothers What Not Shop