With the community’s interest in the historic aspects of the Center crossroad, I thought you might like some of the history of the old McFeeds.

I don’t know what was originally on that corner, but if my memory is correct, it was the late 60s or early 70s when Dick Bain moved a quonset hut onto the empty southeast corner of the intersection. He put a tall front on the hut, and that’s when McFeeds began. At that time it was mostly a place to buy hay, straw and farm animal feed.

I don’t know where the Army surplus quonset hut came from. Of course, they were designed during World War II to be easily raised and taken down in order to house troops or warehouse goods, so it wouldn’t have been too difficult to transport it, probably in sections.

By some measures, McFeeds is, of course, an old structure, but it doesn’t seem to have had a historic relationship to its corner. Or to the wonderful old buildings on the western corners of the intersection or the Odd Fellows Hall that is now the Blue Heron.

— Jean Ameluxen