Mick or Mack

Thomas Albert Barbery (1896-1972) married Ennis Faye Grimm (1886-1987) in 1920. He ran a general store in this building from 1922 to 1932 before opening a store on the south side of Vermillion Street.

Horace A. McNeer (1880-1960), was the son of James W. and Carrie Brown McNeer. In 1913 he married Doris Stark (1890-1964). He opened the Mick or Mack store around 1934.   Mick or Mack’s headquarters was based in Roanoke, Virginia, but most of the stores were owned individually by franchise operators.

Some of their ads placed in local publications and school year books read:

Mick of Mack

The Cash Talks Store

Where Your Dollar Buys More

Staple and Fancy Groceries

The Athens store was in a big two-story brick building with an apartment on the second floor and a basement.  It was the typical grocery store of that era with wood floors and tin tile ceilings. It had nice wide aisles to make grocery shopping easier; the meat and cheese coolers were located in the back of the store. The McNeers lived in the apartment over the store before building their home on Vermillion Street.

The Mick or Mack  store closed about 1949. Later George H. Everett, originally from New York, opened the Athens Market in the same building. In 1953 Homer Ball bought the store, keeping the name Athens Market and began offering credit and delivery services to his customers.

The building was demolished in 2007. Demolition photos are included in the Change chapter.