Through the pages of old papers, I came across an ad that appeared in The January 1923 edition of The Andalusia Star. The ad reads The City Hotel, in which “U are” is a great place to stop and relax and enjoy more food at a lower cost in our NEW Cafe – opening on the 19th of February, M. E. Brunson, Proprietor.
The hotel was located in South Cotton Street in the area where Alan Cotton’s Flower Shop and Gift Shop is now. Near the flower shop is the location that is home to the Sullivan Furniture Company and was formerly The Ritz theatre which has a new roof that was recently put in place.
The readers of this blog have probably seen the row of buildings along the hill of South Cotton, storefronts of times gone by, in the area that was once known as “The The Bottom.” I’ll only refer to one of these structures that my great-grandfather ran his cafe for a hundred years ago.
If one stayed in the City Hotel, food was served to guests as well as the family. The letterhead for business included the words “Clean Rooms, Hot and Cold Water the European Plan.”
The Brunsons were home to Twelve children who shared rooms downstairs. Upstairs , there were guest rooms. The family was a fan of the parlor, and for the last twenty to thirty years, food was cooked inside the basementand transferred into the dining area. In the beginning of the 1920s the health department demanded that baking to be moved to the lower levels to be done.
One of the oldest Brunson boys set up the Brunson baker’s shop on the other side of the street. They began selling cakes, bread, and other baked items to the general public. It was probably around the time “Papa” Brunson began operating the cafe caféseveral doors below the hotel. He also sold hamburgers and popcorn to people who walked by on the sidewalk just in close proximity to the café. The cafe was constantly crowded with a flow of people who walked from the area to the depot from where trains arrived.
The family’s story is as follows. When I was a kid within the hotel all of the family took part in the day-to-day activities. At times, the kids were able to walk up the L & N Depot together with their father to collect luggage and bags from travelers who were who were getting off the train. They also had selling out on the road as well as other visitors who arrived at the period that was World War I.
The boys were also woken in the early morning to walk to the farm located at the end of Carlton Street to take care of the garden, pull the weeds, and collect crops like sugar potatoes, cabbages and corn. Milking the cattle and slopped the hogs and looked after the chickens that were in the back yard behind the hotel. This was the way they did it before they went to school on a weekday. There was a mules called “One-Eyed Jack” that they took turns driving between their homes and the farm. Their trusted buddy Johnny Crenshaw would be with them frequently.
These womenhelped to assist with chores of the housekeepers of the hotel , such as cleaning rooms, changing sheets washing clothes, cleaning and ironing, sewing, baking and cooking,and helping the guests.
It seems that, as the boys got older, they’d run away from their home. One of them went to Texas that was place that was popular to visit back in the times. A few years later one would leave and follow in the footsteps of the first brother.
At the end of the day, there were two brothers in the town, Charlieand John Brunson, who had started their own Andalusia Bakery in a structure across of the Hotel. Bread was made within clay ovens. The building in which the first bakery was situated was demolished this past year to create Heritage Park. Heritage Park.
Two brothers who were teenagers by then decided to play a game of shuffle and decide which one would remain within Andalusiaand the other would join the brothers from Texas. They discovered that the bakery was not able to be able to financially support two families. Charlie Brunson won the toss, and got to remain there in Andalusia. Brothers John went to Texas. Brother Ellie (Buddy) who was single for the entirety of his life, would move back and forth between Texas to his home in Andalusia.
A couple of years or possibly more Matt, one brother, Matt, was able to make the decision to go back to Andalusia to visit. He was at the cafe and sat at one of the barstools. He hung his head and made his purchase and after a few minutes the man declared, “Papa, you don’t even know who I am, do you!” What a unexpected surprise.
The other brothers from Texas performed fairly well. They formed a partnership and launched the family-owned grocery store. The brothers was the owner of the company of theaters which included which included the Brunson Theatres located in Baytown, Texas.
The youngest daughter Eva was married to Mr. Purefoy and they moved to Talladega in which Eva created the hotel she owned. The Hotel Purefoy was a symbol of Talladega that served breakfast buffets to the public and even celebrities would visit Talladega to dine on”the “groaning boards.” The cookbooks she wrote were famous and well-known, and the hotel, which had antiques throughout the hotel was included on the cover of Look magazine.
In 1930,when “Mama Brunson” passed away suddenly the girls had to move in with their sister Eva Brunson Purefoy and the boys were mainly at Texas at the time however. “Sister” Purefoysent her daughters, as well as her younger sisters to college.
Parents Matthew Brunson and Minnie Jane Seale Brunson moved to Andalusia around the beginning of the century, around 1900. Matt had helped to construct the railroad to downtown Andalusia as the line of railroad got extended to Searight. The Brunsons and a few of their brother’s who were from Elbahad were enrolled in at the Highland Home College. After the train project was completed, Matthew Brunson considered the possibility that Andalusia could be a suitable location to raise his family.
In 1900 , when the Brunsons first came to the town on the back of mules in a wagon and pulled into the Brown and Broughton Drug Store located on Court Square with five children however, the number of children during the years that followed grew to a staggering twelve. The Brunson children, in order of their age comprised Eva, Howard, Charlie, Sue, Matt, Ann, Edna, Ellie (Buddy), John, Dot, Helen, and Mary. They were born between 1892 to 1915.
Charlie Brunson continued to run his bakery after changing his location his business from South Cotton Street into South Three Notch Street. The bakery’s Blue Bird Bread brand was later made using the new gas revolving oven around the time the bread cutting machine was developed that was able to streamline the operations. He quit from the business in 1959 after having been in business for 45 years. He had a brother Eva had also been in the business of hotel at Talladega over a period of 45 years. She later branched out in her career to nearby Anniston in The Noble Inn.
Business owners and businesses have been around and gone through the decades throughout Andalusia. If you’ve wondered about what business were like to “The Bottom,” this is only one of the many stories told in this story we can recall from.
Sue Bass Wilson, AHS Class 1965 is a local real estate agent and an ex-choral music instructor. She is a long-time member of the Covington Historical Society and can be reached at suebwilson47@gmail.com.
The article Remember When Brunson Hotel and Cafe – 1923 Brunson Cafe and Hotel Cafe 1923 was originally published in The Andalusia Star-News.
