 Clare
B. Richardson1 ,
2 , 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8,
9, 10,
11, 12,
13, 14,
15, 16,
17, 18
| I got the opportunity to meet a wonderful
elderly man of about 90 years of age who is a historian and life long resident
named Marcus Phillips. He had worked for the city as an engineer so I thought
if he could be of help in locating construction and modification dates to that
Dairy Queen, I could create some sort of timeline history. He told me the city
filed stuff, not by name of an establishment nor by address but instead by chronological
order of project approval date, and it would be very difficult to find any project
as they were maintained in this random fashion. Without an exact date you'd be
pawing through mounds of documents from all over the city for all different kinds
of businesses. |
| Another help was
A.J. Wagner, the co-owner of Rainbow Realty located in the fire station building
converted to a real estate office. Her business had been at the converted old
fire station for over 20 years and includes the surviving adjacent house shown
in the far left of the mural, which is also used as part of the Rainbow Realty
business. It was in the back of this house that I met A.J. and she was able to
do some title searches on the property and came up with a 1959 franchise agreement
between Erma Adams and Dairy Queen. Mrs. Adams was married to a Tommy Adams whose
brother, I am told, owned the Dairy Queen in Arkadelphia so this got her and her
husband into the business. This became very interesting because Erma was in a
long line of owners for this particular Dairy Queen. We know chronologically that
previous owners were a Hooker/Painter/Lumpkin partnership of three married couples,
Harry H. and Beulah B. Strubbe, Frank and Pansy Carnathan, Ralph Snyder (the owner
when the mural photo was taken), possibly a Mr. Jackson, Eugene Merritt, and then
Erma and her husband, Tommy, at the time the agreement was signed in 1959. The
lease was a 25-year standard franchise agreement that probably turned out to be
a bigger problem to Dairy Queen than it was a help. When Dairy Queen was founded
it served just ice cream products. But to expand business many owners took it
on their own to serve food items like hot dogs and hamburgers. I am told that
Erma's food was the absolute best around for those items. Well Dairy Queen saw
many franchisees selling food so decided in the early 60's to standardize their
food menu under the Brazier trade name to indicate the charbroiled nature of their
food items. Dairy Queen expected all franchises to fall in line. The 25-year franchise
lease caused some franchisees to refuse and to continue serving their own home-style
brand of food. Erma was one of them and had until 1984 to be a thorn in Dairy
Queen's side cooking great food her way until the franchise lease expired. From
Dairy Queen's perspective, they wanted all stores to comply so that a cross-country
traveler, such as myself, could expect the same great meal at any Dairy Queen
nationwide with no surprises. The franchisees that refused to comply were at least
forced to state in their establishment "We Do Not Serve Brazier." About 1977 it
was determined the old design of the building was just not spacious enough to
serve the Hot Springs public. Customers were still having to stand outside close
to the street to eat with no tables to sit at and serving food along with ice
cream made the interior facility extra crowded to work in. It was not air conditioned
so by 1978 the original Dairy Queen was torn down and replaced by the more modern
dine-in style that resides at the back of the lot to this day. |
|
When 1984 rolled around, Dairy Queen was ready to renew the franchise for a new
standard 5-year renewal increment and had a show down with Erma Adams. It was
"Brazier or else" and Erma went with "or else." So she split from Dairy Queen
and for about a year or more she continued to serve her delicious food under the
name of "Erma's Dairy La Beef." But without the Dairy Queen support, business
fell off sharply and by 1985 she threw in the towel and went back to becoming
a Dairy Queen and dropped her recipes for the Brazier line of foods. This explain
why Dairy Queen's records go back only to 1985 for this location and not all the
way back to 1948 when the establishment was originally built and franchised. During
my adventures, many people had proposed the easy solution of just contacting Dairy
Queen headquarters to find where and when each Arkansas franchise was created.
Not only were records lost over time within Dairy Queen as it grew to become International
Dairy Queen but also because of franchisees falling in and out of franchise arrangements,
like Erma Adams did, there was no clear path to the past. George Bennett was nice
enough to run around with me and take me back to the site to discuss his memories
of the place. Of particular interest is the white stepped retaining wall just
east of the old fire station defining the property line, where long ago customers
used to sit under the shade of the extended roof of the original Dairy Queen to
get relief from the direct sunlight. It was not visible in the mural due to the
crowd of people that day. On the other side of the Dairy Queen he spoke of a round
porcelain drinking fountain all Dairy Queens had back then to quench your thirst
after eating the dry cone part of an ice cream cone. He introduced me to the present
day owner of that Dairy Queen, Ronnie Johnston and his wife Vickie. Their daughters
Rhonda and Carol also presently work there. Ronnie is the older son of Erma Adams
from a prior marriage. The store has remained in the family since 1959 or more
than 45 years at the two locations under the same address on the same property
for three generations - four if you count Rhonda's young son, Austin, often seen
there with mom! |
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