Get ready for the new year with some old photos of downtown McMinnville.
The Southern Standard has produced a 2016 calendar just in time for your holiday shopping. The calendars are currently available at the newspaper office for $5.
The calendar offers a snapshot of times past when service stations, hotels, and car dealerships lined the streets of downtown McMinnville. One picture taken near the corner of First National Bank shows a street bustling with activity and a sign declaring 5-cent admission to a double feature every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was taken in the late 1930s.
Called “Memories on Main Street," those memories start with the calendar cover shot of businesses long gone such as Locke’s 5-10, Hillis Hardware, McMinnville Grocery and Meat Market, and J.C. Penney Company.
The back photograph of Mullican-Henegar Chevrolet sales and service station was in the location of our current McMinnville Fire Department.
Standard publisher Pat Zechman said, “Join us in taking a walk through history as we remember life in an era that formed us as a people and community. The Standard is proud to present a poignant remembrance of the county seat.”
The newspaper sought photographs from our readers, hoping to capture the essence of eras gone by.
Life-long McMinnville resident Mildred Phillips had photos from the days of Southern Continental Telephone Company. Its office was located on Main Street in the current building owned by Tami and Larry Ross.
“My mother and father, Toy and Virginia Cantrell, both worked for the telephone company,” said Phillips. “Mother worked the switchboard, and my father was a lineman, and I feel like I was raised on Main Street. I went to work with mother, and she had a cot there where I would go to sleep. One of my memories is we rode a horse to get back and forth to our home and to school.”
As well as other photo contributors, the newspaper is grateful to the Brady, Hughes and Beasley photo archive now housed at Magness Library, which is also located on Main Street. 
The calendars can be purchased at our office at 105 College Street.