More memories of stores in Weigelstown
Every discussion about the location that is now Royal Farms in Dover seems to draw more memories and comments from that area. Most line up pretty well, but we do have some gaps and maybe some memory conflicts!
We talked before about the Royal Farms location having been a Jay’s market. We also talked about some surrounding businesses, and I was asking, in some cases, what had been in those locations “before.”
Tracey said that the Dover Township McDonald’s did not replace any particular business – though she says, “It did put Hardee’s out of business!”
She worked at both those places, Hardee’s during high school and then McDonald’s during beauty school.
She also mentioned how Walgreen’s took the place of the old Nellie’s restaurant. “Much to my heartbreak … That place was a Dover institution,” she said.
Ed, a new commenter, writes, “I lived in Dover all my life.” He confirmed that Walgreen’s bulldozed Nellie’s, as well as the Cooks’ MG dealership. He said CVS took the place of a Super Thrift grocery store and J&W hardware store. “J&W started where the Jay’s market was, which was first Lairds hardware,” he said.
Tracey, however, recalled something different.
She said the hardware store that was on the Route 74 edge of the present CVS building as a Spangler’s hardware, owned by the family of a girl she had Algebra 2 with!
I had thought it was Leaner’s, but Tracey remembered that was where Sheetz is now, across from the West Manchester Mall. (Once she said that, it does jive with my memories.)
A “different” Mark (not the one from Austria!) said Jay’s was previously a Safeway and said the McDonald’s stands where the Weigelstown fire house was. He also recalled that where Advance Auto Parts is now used to be a Dauphin Deposit Bank. He continues, “Anybody remember where Beecher and Myers is now being a pizza shop?” He also named several other Dover institutions – Wynn’s Restaurant, Yingling’s Service Center, Mustang Corral, Legore’s, Dover Auto Parts and Farrell’s Nursery, as well as a Pizza Box, Ashcombe’s Dairy (which – and this is Joan’s memory now – I remember turning into a car lot!).
He also mentioned the area where Weis is now having been an old farmhouse, and he mentioned the Exxon that used to be on the square where Tom’s is now. I remember that place, it was “Ralph’s Exxon,” and my dad and ol’ Ralph were good friends! I always got to have a soda when we went there to visit. It was a big deal, when I was 6!
Had to laugh at Mark’s closing comment: “Sorry people, I gotta go, gave myself a headache.”
As I’ve dug farther into the past with all this store-sorting-out, I have definitely gotten my own share of headaches!! But it’s fun, too. What else do you remember?
In Weiglestown where you say Dauphin Deposit bank was there was originally a grocery store. I think it was where Mr Spangler started his store before building the newer store down the road.
Do you know when Spangler grocery store closed?
Hi Nancy! That was a few things over the years – first Spangler’s, which to my recollection lasted into maybe the early to mid-1990s? Then Shur-Fine, which made it until at least the early 2000s, maybe mid, then finally SaveSmart, which closed in 2011. At one point it was supposed to become a Lidl, but that fell through as far as I am aware!