The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-02-12
Locating the Custom House.

II {,tiile biiht atltitA5 ti1N r<tt7 H *!|
The good year 1905 our own
Garrett assisted by Senator Boo 4ay-
lor, complineHted this town with a
5000 public building and procured
an appropriation to pay for same.
Now Uncle Sam, the entire postal
force of the upper class, together with
a bunch of well-fed funkies, have been
working over time trying to find a place
TO plant it.
The citizenship also has helped, as
best they could, to solve the problem,
using the petition route.
A large portion seemed to prefer the
Head corner or vicinity; others thought
the Pink Bennett corner or somewhere
in the neighborhood of the courthouse
would be the place and went to work to
locate your Uncle Samuel's brown-stone
mansion on the square or Whereabouts.
After waiting six long and weary
months wrestling with the problem the
man" in Washington wrote a postal
and selected the Bennett corner as the
identical spot. The man" had pro-
crastinated, the harvest had passed. the
summer was ended and Mr.. Bennett
had decided not to SELL Word was
wired to Washington and wired back
again notifying DR.. Hiboetts of the Sc
lection of his lot, the Corbett Hotel
property, asking the Doctor to make his
abstract, make ready his deeds, clear
his lot and put things in order for the
coming of the stone masons, the brick
masons, the dirt-diggers, carpenters and
things, for Uncle Sam was ready for ac-
ton.
And then the world began to breathe
easy. We thought we had her fixed. :"
But in SO thinking we erred again. Just
as The Commercial was about to scoot
to press, Uncle Tom Taylor, postmas-
ter, ETC., dropped in, squared himself,
cleared his neck and said: Hitched
again"
According to the postmaster's story,
Uncle Sam is very particular, as well as
exacting He wants every thing just
right, " and is somewhat particular as
to who his neighbors are.
Just east of the Hibbitts block, be-
yond an alley, stands livery barn.
Early in the action the citizens of the
courthouse section were informed that
the barn was Objectionable and that it
would queer" the Hibbitts property so
far as a Government building site was
concerned
The livery barn property is owned by
Mr.. and Mrs. Labourn Burton, of Full
ton. Parties interested went to Fulton
to see the owners Of the property and
procured signed contract whereby they
agreed to discontinue the livery bust
ness at that point and arrange the build
ing, a large two-story brick, for bust
ness of another class. This was several
months ago. In the meantime the
Burtons had an opportunity to lease the
building to Mr.. A. B. Campbell for
term of three years to be used for livery
purposes at what they considered fair
rental price, and the lease was drawn.
Here's the hitch. /" The Burtons,
Of course, cannot do the two things at
one and the same time with the same
piece of property. They have leased to
Campbell and for three years cannot |
urn him out and make ready for dry |
goods or grocery store, hardware con-
,ern or any old concern able to wear
rood clothes and be able to keep COM
)any with a custom-house. Mr.. Bur-
on has so informed the man. The
nan" holds Mr.. Burton's contract, and
What he is going to do about it, no one
an guess. A law suit in the Federal
court may be the result, with the mail
'oys dishing out the letters from the
anne little one-story flat for a few more
ears.
On the other end of the string. DIR.
Iibbitts has placed the hotel matter in
be hands of Attorney ]. A. Whipple,
Tho is arranging the title to the prop
rty and will forward the papers to
within the next day or so.
Our guess: We viii have a nice gov
building, one we will all be
roud of-some day.
baby Hands