DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Hicks and Cobb General Merchandise Store in Hardeman County. Now settle in, because this one's got fire, friendship, and Oklahoma cobblestones — and that right there ought to be enough to earn your attention. The townsite of Medicine Mound had long been a thriving village when two brothers-in-law made their way into the picture.
Lon L. Cobb and Ira Lee Hicks arrived in the area with their families in 1927 and opened a general merchandise store. Brothers-in-law in business together — now that's either a recipe for legend or a cautionary tale, and sometimes it's both at once.
The store carried the kinds of things folks out on the land couldn't do without: work clothes, clothing material, shoes, cotton sacks, groceries, horse feed. The essentials. The kind of inventory that tells you everything about who the customers were and what their days looked like.
And in winter, regular customers would pull up close to the fire, warm themselves, and pass the time with conversation and checkers. That store wasn't just a place to spend money. It was a place to be.
Then came 1933. A fire — and the marker doesn't soften this — all but destroyed the townsite. Not a corner.
Not a block. The townsite. But here's where Hicks and Cobb show their character: that same year, they rebuilt.
And they didn't rebuild with whatever was lying around. They used round granite cobblestones from Oklahoma. You think about that next time you're looking at a wall and wondering if it has a story.
Lon L. Cobb died in 1942, and after that, Ira Lee Hicks carried on alone, keeping the store going as one of the last businesses to serve area residents and migrant agricultural workers. The last.
There's something about being the one still standing, still open, still stocking the shelves, that says more about a man than most eulogies ever could. Ira Lee Hicks died in 1966. And the structure those two men built — out of granite cobblestones hauled from Oklahoma, raised from the ash of a fire that took down nearly everything — became a community gathering place and a Medicine Mound museum.
The checkers players are gone. But the walls are still there.
What the marker says
The townsite of Medicine Mound had long been a thriving village when brothers-in-law Lon L. Cobb and Ira Lee Hicks arrived in the area with their families in 1927 and opened a general merchandise store. The store sold such items as work clothes and clothing material, shoes, cotton sacks, groceries and horse feed. Regular customers warmed themselves by the fire in winter, indulging in conversation and checkers. In 1933 a fire all but destroyed the townsite, but Hicks and Cobb rebuilt that year with round granite cobblestones from Oklahoma. Lon L. Cobb died in 1942. Hicks carried on and the store was among the last businesses to serve area residents and migrant agricultural workers. Ira Lee Hicks died in 1966; the structure became a community gathering place and a Medicine Mound museum. (1999)