it was called State Road 2 then. It went around the prairie before they
 built the causeway across. As I say in the grain business, the horse and
 buggy days were getting over, the chain stores were beating out the
 independent merchants, and the good roads enabled the Jacksonville whole-
 salers to run trucks to Gainesville. So all those things put together were
 putting the squeeze on the local wholesalers.

M: Were you the only local wholesaler?

S: No, there were six wholesalers in Gainesville in 1929, and by 1932 there
 were two of us 16ft--Central Grocery Company and myself.

M: Who ran Central Grocery Company?

S: Mr. A.C. Kirby. Mr. Kirby was a very fine person and a very fine operator.
 I learned a lot from him. During that three years there was about a ninety
 percent decrease in volume of business in the whole town. What the two of
 us had left was about ten percent of what all six had before they started
 going out of business.

 By that time I khew it was over, so I started looking around, deciding what
 I was going to do. I had graduated in engineering. I had a good knowledge
 of mathematics, physics, materials, and I had some good experience in construc-
 tion. So, I decided that rather than try to go into the construction business,
 or back into engineering, I would go...I had the set-up. I had the sales
 force, I had the office force, I had the warehouse and the trucks. So, all I
 had to do was transfer the items. In other words, instead of sending out a
 case of tomatoes, I could send out a roll of roofing. So, I started.in the
 building materials business. By 1932, I was well into the building materials
 business.

 So I ran the two businesses. I had different salesman, but I had the same
 office and the same bookkeeping set-up, the same warehouse, and the same
 trucks. The only additional costs I had of swinging over was the building
 materials salesmen, to build up that end of the business while the grocery
 end was falling off. So, 1935 was the first year that the building materials
 carried the business--was the big profit end of the business. From then on,
 the building material end went up and the grocery business went down, until
 we closed it out.

 M: What year was that?

 S: In 1945 I closed out the wholesale grocery business, and I organized three
 businesses. The building materials business was going well, and it had been
 a combination of wholesale and retail. Then I divided it into three businesses.
 I kept the Stringfellow Supply Company, and I organized a new corporation called
 the Stringfellow Supply Company, which was 100 percent wholesale building
 materials, no groceries. And I organized Striton Hardware, with Fred Clayton,
 to take over all of our retail business. We just turned over to them all the
 retail customers and all the business. The Stringfellow Supply didn't sell
 anything at retail. We didn't make any retail sales tax report. If you didn't
 have a retail license and weren't in the business, you couldn't buy from us.
 The Striton Hardware had the retail business. Then I took the paint and glass
 part of the business and got another fellow that had a very high qualification,
 Joe Liddel, and I organized the Liddel Paint and Glass Company.