 Denison, Texas Sugar
Bottom The "Sugar
Bottom Blues" was a major hit in Denison of Denison, especially along
South Armstrong Avenue in the 1930s. Sugar
Bottom is considered Denison’s
first shopping center, but it really had its own identity, similar to
the
Cotton Mill Community in the southern part of Denison. Sugar Bottom
really
caused the cultivation and creation of what is now southwest Denison
reaching
to the new bypass at Loy Lake. The Denison
Sunday Gazetteer of March
11, 1876,
noted Pat McJackson had the honor of naming Sugar Bottom. There are
numerous
stories as to how the name came about, but there is really no way of
knowing,
and it is probably best left to the imagination. Sugar Bottom was notorious at the beginning, which is said to have begun at the George Burnett Saloon on the north side of the tracks on the west side of South Armstrong Avenue, and the Denison Coal, Feed, and Fuel on the east side. 1887 Denison City Directory The Sugar Bottom
buildings are
mostly intact and still in operation in 1998. There have been hundreds
of
occupants over the last century, since Lewis Wertz built the first row
of
buildings on the 600 block on the west side. Grocery stores,
confectioneries,
hardware stores, barbers, furniture merchants, auto repairs, and any
number of
other enterprises could There
were a number of pioneers that
lasted through the popularity of Sugar Bottom such as: Charles Brigman,
Joe
Newcomb, J.J. Redmon, D.E. Holmon, Sam Benjamin. O.B. Anderhub,
Frank
Ramsey, Ben Means, and a host of others. Sugar Bottom is still vivid in
the
minds of older Denisonians, but the younger set seems a bit confused to
all the
glitz old timers give to the once busy community within a community. Sugar Bottom got its
first taste of
saloons when George Burnett opened his saloon on the north side of the
tracks
on the 500 block of South Armstrong Avenue.
 Sugar Bottom Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message.  |