_e.jpg)
Law's Market: The Last Corner Store
- Abandoned Clarksville
- Mar 29, 2019
- 5 min read
We take a look inside a little store with a big impact.
From 1941 to as late as January 2019. Law’s Market, located on the corner of Coulter and 10th Street, served the citizens and restaurants of Clarksville, Tennessee.
“He offered anything you needed for your house as far as groceries go. Of course it was so basic back then. There weren’t all the options like we have now,” says Evie Cobb Carroll, current co-owner of the now vacant Law’s Market. Carroll is the daughter to Cecil Cobb who owned the store from 1958 until he passed and left it to her mother.
According to Carroll. The original owner of Law’s Market was Mr. Law, the father of Harry Law. We couldn’t track down Mr. Law’s first name. If you know, please head over to our contact page and tell us! Mr. Law was a partner with Coy Baggett. Around 1958, Mr. Law sold his share to Cecil Cobb. The owners changed, but the name stayed.
“It looked just like the way you’re seeing it now, except the aisles aren’t there,” said Carroll.
Although small, Law’s served many of the residents near the market to include Madison Street and the Maple Mere areas.
Law’s Market, long before every store was offering it, had free delivery to its customers. George Lane, the delivery man would load up green wire baskets, each with the customer’s items and make the rounds.
“People would call in and place their order. You better not ask them what type or brand they preferred. You needed to know what the customer wanted, you never asked the customer the brand, you either knew, or ask daddy.”
Carroll never officially worked in the market, but from time to time she had to help.
“Usually, I would run around the store socializing with everyone and trying to see what candy I could sneak out of there without my daddy seeing.”
As Carroll got older, what she ran around doing at store changed.
“My worst nightmare as a teenager was on Saturday mornings,” Carroll recalls. “If his cashier was out that day and he had no one to cover the shift, guess who had to go in? Me! I did not like doing that. Especially the call in orders. I didn’t know what these ladies wanted. I just would ask daddy. He knew.”
Since at least the 1950’s, the layout of the market hasn’t changed.
When you first walked in, the cash register was directly in front of you. to your right was two rows of shopping carts, beside those was the egg cooler. Next to that was an air-conditioning unit. In front of the AC unit was an upright coke machine and a place to return your bottles. There is a long wall of windows that looks out to 10th st. Those windows would open up like a door to allow delivery trucks to pull up and unload the market’s stock.
On the far wall next to the windows was where you would find bakery items. Break, cereal, baking needs, cookies, and more. That aisle ran all the way to the stock room door which was located in the back right corner. Turning left and long the back wall was coolers that displayed the meats from the butcher shop, packaged meat such as bacon, and hotdogs, milk, butter, and cheese. The entrance to the butcher shop was also located on this wall at the back left part of the store.
“It’s just amazing, I can still see it!” Carroll continues, ““I can still see him standing at that butcher block on Sunday afternoons. I would be sitting up on the counter watching him. I remember him doing it all”
The exterior wall that ran along Coulter St. is where you would find produce which was closest to the meats. Then you would come to frozen foods and ice cream. Followed by personal care items on the last shelf closest to the front door.
The middle aisles were where you would find school supplies, spices, canned goods, and anything else you could have need.
But really, what kept Law’s Market open for so long was its meat market and the restaurants it served. Law’s Market provided meats to some of Clarksville’s food icons. Restaurants like Pic-a-rib, Moss’s, the Catfish House when it was located on Wilma Rudolph, Red’s Bakery, Johnny’s Big Burger, and many more. Most of these places, Like Law’s Market has since shuttered their doors and are only a memory that creeps back when one gets a craving for some home cooking. As those restaurants closed, the market’s business got smaller ultimately leading to the end of Law’s Market.
Before Cobb died, he tried to sell the market but there were no takers. Grocery stores like Law’s Market were being replaced by large corporate owned stores. He sold the stock and auctioned everything inside. The market remained opened for several more years but only serving as meat supplier to local restaurants. Cobb along with Edward Batson Sr. would prepare the meats and make the deliveries. Even that had to come to an end and that end came as a result of losing a long term client.
“We closed the meat market side of it when we lost Johnny’s Big Burger. We only had two or three other clients and it just wasn’t enough. Everyone now can get it from a lot of other places and cheaper. No one is mad or bitter about that,” Carroll stressed. “Business need to make decisions that will keep them in business.”
The final locking of the doors came around January of 2019.
“Sure I was sad,” Carroll said of the closing news. “But I can sit here and smile thinking about the times I had in there, the stories we would tell and seeing how hard my daddy worked.”
As far as the future of the building, Carroll hopes to see something go in there, if nothing else as a way to keep Law’s Market alive in some way. The building is said to soon be for sale and the items inside will either be auctioned off or distributed amongst the current owners.
Giant, corporate owned grocery stores stocked with thousands of items sure are convenient. They seem to never run out of the basics, they are open at all hours, and they are built just a few minutes away from anywhere. These big stores are missing something though. That something was probably lost forever when the cash register on aisle one, the only one, dinged for the last time.
If you have photos or stories of Law’s Market that you would like to share please let us know. Also, we are sharing the information given to us. If we missed a fact, please tell us so we can get it corrected.
Check out more photos of Law's Market
Have a location you'd like us to check out? Contact us today!
I only worked there 1 year but Mr Cobb taught me so much I spent 10 years at Winn Dixie working by what I learned at laws market. The article is right on about the customers. You better know them. I can still see the inside as it was when I worked there.Nothing changed. So sad to see it close. Every time I go down 10th street I slow down still and look. Great memories.
I have such sweet memories of Laws Market. As a young child I would help my Grandmother make a list and she'd call in her order. Soon Mr. Lane would appear in his white apron and hat greeting us as he came in the back screened door. "Good Morning, Mrs. Davis" he'd say as he put away the items in the refrigerator for her and offer to do the rest if she needed help. Such a simple life and happy times! Thank you Laws Market for the memories!