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Old Town Square
The gate blocking Main St was erected in the 1970s. Look straight ahead down the street to what was the town square area. Long before shopping mall and big box stores, the center of commerce for a town was the downtown and Cliffside was no exception. After the mill started production in the early 1900's a two-story wood building was erected just outside the mill main gate that contained the company store post office and later a large schoolroom upstairs. In the early years, horse-drawn wagons would come to the store in the Spring for seed fertilizer and household staples. They would return in the Fall with loads of cotton to be ginned sold and used in the mill. As the mill grew the need for local commerce increased. A brick store building was built across the downtown square to replace the wooden store. A large brick community building was being planned by R. R. Haynes before his death in 1917. This "skyscraper" was constructed and dedicated in 1922 as the R.R. Haynes Memorial Building. This building included a library theater banquet hall classrooms hotel cafe beauty and barber shops sauna and atop the magnificent structure was the town clock. The buildings' features were exceptional for any town but were extraordinary for the village of Cliffside. Several other businesses were built that offered residents a garage hardware cannery feed store ice plant cafe and bank. Downtown Cliffside provided the people their basic needs rarely requiring them to shop elsewhere. Imagine a small textile town that for over seventy years provided within walking distance from home a post office, bank, department store, grocery store, doctor, dentist, cafe, barber and beauty shops, cannery skating rink, bowling alley, library, banquet hall, movie theater, and even a place to take a hot bath before running water was installed in the houses. Downtown Cliffside did that ... and more!!!
Address : 272 Old Main Street, Cliffside, NC 28024, USA
