Oxford’s South Side was home to several important businesses: One that made a splash when it was opened in 1963 was Black & Dill’s Hardware Store, Charles Black and Wendell Dill, proprietors. Established in the property of Fred L. Wilson located at the corner of Water Street and the Pugwash Road, the shop sold building supplies, paints, plywood, roofing materials, plumbing and electrical supplies and much more. It had previously been operated by Hiel Patterson as a market, prior to that by Mr. Wilson as a grocery, and earlier store owners on that spot were John Ferguson, John Swan, George L. Stevens, and others. The building was known as “The White Corner Store.”
Only ten months after opening its doors, Black & Dill was destroyed by an early morning fire that appears to have started on the second floor. The second-storey apartment was unoccupied at the time, but an early morning transfer driver passing by at about 4:00am saw flames leaching through the roof, blowing his horn to attract the attention of night watchman Basil Dobson. The Oxford Fire Department was soon on the scene, adding streams of water to extinguish the blaze, which had been held back by heavy snow on the flat roof. Sadly, while the fire did not reach the ground floor, the firefighting operation drenched the ground floor and all merchandise was lost. The building was declared a total loss and shortly thereafter was torn down.
Small detail, but it was Hiel Patterson, not Heil Peterson, that had Patterson’s Market prior to that location becoming a hardware store. I remember one evening lightning struck the telephone pole in front of the building and the transformer was on fire.
Thank-you, Andrew! I checked the original clipping, and the article had the correct spelling – the transliteration was my error. Fixed!
Memories like the one you shared are important to putting “meat on the bones” of our knowledge of local history. Feel free to share, correct, and add to the material posted here on Hello Oxford, the Oxford Historical Society page, and the Pictorial History of Oxford pages. We particularly like to see images from South Side!
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