Driven by Drink? Why the Village of Amherst Became a Town
One hundred years ago, on April 15, 1910, the village of Amherst became an incorporated town, a change that gave residents the opportunity to create and enforce local ordinances and generate the revenue needed to fund local projects. The first order of business on the new town’s agenda entailed instituting fines for concealed weapons and public drunkenness. As the county seat, the small village of Amherst had endured more than its fair share of traffic, transients, taverns, prostitutes, and alcohol-fueled brawls. Even the courthouse steps were not safe by any standards imaginable today. By incorporating, villagers hoped to get a better handle on the situation.
Recalling stories he heard from his elders back in the 1930s, Paul Wailes III, the town’s unofficial historian, explains that the village and its surroundings had a drinking problem. As many as fifteen saloons dotted the streets and alleys from the railroad station up Depot Street and into the upper village.
It is likely that one of those taverns was located in the Central Hotel, which was razed in 1953 to make way for the shopping center that contained Drummond’s grocery store, Wailes clothing shop, and Howell’s grocery. Older town residents can still remember buying coffee and pickled eggs at the hotel’s coffee shop before it was torn down.
Entire article available only in printed version. Lynch's Ferry is on sale at the following Lynchburg locations: Barnes & Noble, Bookshop on the Avenue, The Design Group, Given Books, Inklings Bookshop, Lynchburg Visitors' Center, Macon Bookshop, Old City Cemetery, Point of Honor, and Walgreens on Boonsboro.
Robert Wimer is the retired editorial page editor of The News & Advance and lives in Amherst.
Recalling stories he heard from his elders back in the 1930s, Paul Wailes III, the town’s unofficial historian, explains that the village and its surroundings had a drinking problem. As many as fifteen saloons dotted the streets and alleys from the railroad station up Depot Street and into the upper village.
It is likely that one of those taverns was located in the Central Hotel, which was razed in 1953 to make way for the shopping center that contained Drummond’s grocery store, Wailes clothing shop, and Howell’s grocery. Older town residents can still remember buying coffee and pickled eggs at the hotel’s coffee shop before it was torn down.
Entire article available only in printed version. Lynch's Ferry is on sale at the following Lynchburg locations: Barnes & Noble, Bookshop on the Avenue, The Design Group, Given Books, Inklings Bookshop, Lynchburg Visitors' Center, Macon Bookshop, Old City Cemetery, Point of Honor, and Walgreens on Boonsboro.
Robert Wimer is the retired editorial page editor of The News & Advance and lives in Amherst.
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