The Store at "The Bend"

 

The winds break up the silence along Farm Road 677 in the North Texas Red River community of Illinois Bend. Several red brick houses that were sparkling new in the 1930s and 40’s are sitting next to motor homes as they babysit the Sinclair filling station. The once proud station has not serviced a vehicle since the presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

 

Billie Grigsby turns around and admires the work Ray Ashley, Illinois Bend historian and resident, did on the old Grigsby Store, which turned into the Sinclair. “He has preserved the building very well,” Grigsby says as it jogs up a memory. “One day, my husband was on his tractor and while he tried to use the crank," she says, "it slipped out of gear pushing and pinning him onto the wall leaving an indentation of his rear end.” Her fingers, which begin to tremble a bit, points to the spot of the permanent marker, which looks like a beat up can of soda pop.

The quietness begins to go away as an ivory F-250 super duty with a ranch trailer hitched on the back comes along. Montague County Chairperson Janis Sneed, decorated with a worn grey sweatshirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, opens the door.

“Just getting back,” she says. “I went to the doctor, then to Gainesville to do some shopping, then to Bowie and to the feed store.”

“We were just looking at Ray’s place,” Grigsby adds.

“Don’t you love what Ray is doing to the Sinclair?” Sneed asks.

Prior to the station it was a grocery store that Grigsby's husband "Doodle's" grandparents ran until 1945. The place sold items such as gasoline, kerosene, canned goods, some fruits, cotton and turkey, most of which was acquired from Tyler and Simpson Wholesale grocers in Gainesville. After the end of the Second World War it became a Sinclair station. In 1965, the station closed, and just sat there until the family sold it in 1985 or 1986 and a decade later, Ashley purchased the building.