Long Hollow Community

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Out in Leon County, there's a place called Long Hollow, named for the pioneer Long family who put down roots there. The community that grew up around them was made of farm families, the kind who showed up for each other when it counted.

In the 1880s they raised a school building that did triple duty, schoolhouse by day, community center and church when the occasion called for it. That one building carried a lot of weight for a lot of years. Then, in 1918, it burned.

Now, some communities might have taken that as a sign and scattered. Not Long Hollow. The members of that community worked together and built something larger.

That says just about everything you need to know about the kind of people they were. And while you're picturing this little settlement, you have to picture the store. Alfred and Margaret Petty ran it, and it was so small, so wonderfully, impractically small, that customers couldn't even step inside.

You conducted your business through a window. Just walked up, stated your needs, and waited. The store had a particular soft spot for school children, catering to them especially, year after year.

It kept on that way until 1929, when the school consolidated with Marquez, and with the school gone, the Petty store closed too. Long Hollow didn't vanish with a bang. It just quietly folded up, the way a lot of good things do, one small closing at a time.

What the marker says

Named for the pioneer Long family, the Long Hollow community consisted of area farm families. A school erected in the 1880s also served as a community center and church. When it burned in 1918 members of the community worked together to build a larger structure. A store operated by Alfred and Margaret Petty, so small that customers conducted business through a window, served the area for many years, catering especially to school children. The store closed in 1929 when the school consolidated with Marquez. (1988)