Stanton's General Store - Leonard Stanton

Transcribed article: Store That Time Passed by Sets Tone of Town. By Rosalind K. Young. Things have been changing in Holliday in Johnson County. It's not that progress has finally caught up with the town, either progress simply has passed it by. In fact, you can watch the bypass progress going one or the other director from the window in Stanton's general store. And that's what Leonard E. Stanton does sometimes when he's not too busy in the store. "Yeah, the flood in '51 got the railroad depot," recalls Stanton. "Then the Santa Fe took out their signal tower. Then they built that overpass and took our church's land. Little by little they're changing it around here." So instead of seeing the trains stop in Holliday, named after Cyrus K. Holliday, the young railroad man from the East who came to Kansas and started the Santa Fe railway in 1859, the 150 citizens still living there just hear the trains click by. It's not too bad, though, being a little town on the outskirts of a big one. The trust of it is, most of the citizens who live in Holliday like it for just that reason, it's a little town. "Most of the folks here work in the city," said Stanton. "But they like life here just fine." Stanton's general store is the major enterprise in Holliday. But that's not its only claim to fame. Leonard E. Stanton runs a real general store, the kind that's recorded in history books. Like it as is. "There's been a lot of people who come in here and say, 'Don't change a thing, don't change a thing,' " Stanton said. "There isn't anything to change. I have everything I need." For one thing Leonard Stanton has an old potbelly stove sitting right in the middle of the store. "Burns hot, doesn't it?" he remarked. "I don't know how long it's been here. But I do know it's greeting hard to get coal for it." The old potbelly wasn't surrounded by townspeople the way it used to be, admitted Stanton, but it still heated the store just fine. A few years ago, well, maybe more than a few, the old potbelly was the scene of many a discussion about crops, stock, politics, the neighbors and maybe even the youngsters around town. "There's been a little courting done around this old stove," said the town merchant, "sweet talk and everything. I bet I know of two marriages in town that developed around that stove." One Chair Serves. But the main function of the old stove now is simply to heat the 2-story building. Stanton provides only one worn, red lawn chair, that rocks ever so little if you force it, for his customers. In the true spirit of the venerable store, Stanton provides all kinds of commodities for the residents. He carries general groceries, shoe laces, cosmetics, nonprescription drug items, fishing tackle, shotgun shells, toys and a few items of clothing, and the front of the store is the Holliday post office. "I don't know how long it's been here either," said Stanton, who is obviously not too interested in history. "I know it's been three places in this store and was in somebody's living room at one time. And it must be pretty old because the Agricultural Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs wanted to buy it from me." The old post office front is tattered, scarred, unpainted and looks like it has been gnawed by termites. But it has character and Stanton wouldn't think of getting rid of it. There's not a stamp sold in the general store that isn't sold behind the tiny barred window of the post office front. And all of the mail "delivered" in Holliday is delivered to Stanton's general store. Mail is Light. "The mail isn't really delivered here," said the postmaster. "I sort it and put it in the boxes. Of, maybe I handle 65 pieces of mail a day." When the people of Holliday come in to get their mail they usually pick up a quart of milk or a loaf of bread. Both businesses are profitable. During the 1951 flood, Holliday not only lost its railroad depot, it lost its general store and post office. "The water was clear up on the second floor 26 inches of it up there," Stanton recalled. "But the nice thing about it was that everybody knew it was coming and before I knew what was going on they were all in here loading things up and taking them to the big bluff right behind the store. For a while I carried on business right up there. Then we moved all of the goods to one of the people's living rooms and I sold groceries right tout of the crate and box there." After the flood Stanton had to replace all of the scales and fixtures. But he didn't get modern ones. Everything still had a country flavor. The produce is displayed in old wooden bins, the candy is displayed in an old glass case, the display shelves were just repainted and the meat and poultry are displayed in an old, white enamel cooler, the kind with the counter on top and the sliding doors. Stanton has also devised a rather unusual accounting system. e has an old Champion register which really registers nothing but affords him a place to file his sales tickets. He adds the tickets by figuring and then places them in metal clips which are in rows on several folding metal pages. "I don't file the tickets any way particular," he said. "It's just sorta where they land." Unlike the old days, however, Stanton allows free charges, so there's no settling up day. "My business is mostly cash," he said. Now even Holliday's school has been consolidated and the children attend Woodsonia elementary and high school, but Stanton is doing his best to keep the general store the way it always was. "This place has been about the same through the years and I don't plan on it changing," he said. "It's worked out just fine this way." Stanton often remarks that he thinks he'll get some old cracker or pickle barrels, just to add a little color. "I bought this place in 1949 when the man who owned it said to me 'why don't you let me sell you my store'," said Stanton, who is 63. "I hadn't really intended to go into the grocery business." Painted the Schools. The store owner had worked in and even managed grocery stores in Kansas City but when he chose his profession he became a decorator for the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education. "I guess you'd say I painted schools," he said candidly. This store Stanton really doesn't have to manage or anything. It runs itself. He makes a trip a week into the city to pick up supplies from a wholesale grocer. the bakery goods are delivered daily. Stanton says the soft drink distributors sometimes forget home when they're busy in the summer. "I don't have to worry too much about stock," he explained. "Most of the people around here raise their own vegetables and things in season and some of them butcher their own meat." What used to be a favorite pastime - Sitting around the potbelly stove and discussing literally anything - is dwindling in popularity in Holliday in Johnson County. Once in a while, however, Cecil Barnes (right), a retired Red Cap and resident of Holliday, stops in Stanton's General store to chat with the owner, Leonard E. Stanton. The old postoffice at Stanton' general store in Holliday in Johnson County handles about 65 pieces of mail a day according to Leonard E. Stanton (behind window), postmaster and owner of the general store. The postoffice front sits in the northwest corner of the store and although Stanton is reluctant to date it exactly, he says it has been a part of the store at least since 1919. The owner of Stanton's general store, Leonard E. Stanton, took over the store n 1949. The building has been standing in Holliday in Johnson County since 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Stanton live in the second story of the old building. Kansas City Times, January 26, 1967.