Wilmington Dry Goods, bargains, and street names

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Before there were chains of discount department stores, there was Wilmington Dry Goods on Market Street in Wilmington from 1924 to 1977.  The Wilmington Dry stores in the suburbs after that just don't count.

This site tells more than you want to know of the history of the enterprise, but skip down to the pictures.  They are great.

http://www.oldwilmington.net/oldwilmington/wdg.html
Multiple levels, wooden floors, piles of things on tables.
Going there was always an adventure.

I hardly remember the Market Street entrance.  We always went in from King Street, which meant that if it was a market day, when we were really little, Daddy would buy warm roasted peanuts from a cart there as we left - a little bag for each of us. Surely we were not allowed to eat them until we got home, though. Peanut shells in the car are just unimaginable.

I do remember thinking it was pretty strange that all those farmers' trucks were on KING Street, when MARKET street was right there, one block over.  It was not so much that the trucks were in the wrong place.  It was more that the streets must have had the wrong names.

I was reminded of all of this when I put on this jacket this morning. 

Each of my brothers had one of these coats, bought at Wilmington Dry in the 1960's.  I still use them (coats, not brothers) as 'barn jackets' for outdoor jobs in almost cold weather. The inner lining in the sleeves is shot, but I would say that they seriously turned out to be a real bargain.