MAIN STREET CHANGES
W
by Danielle Gallo
hen I first came to live in
Marathon in 2002, I worked
at the Marathon Coffee
Shop, owned at the time by Connie
Vaughn. Marathon’s Main Street was
where everything happened in town:
the two-and-a-half blocks from Mary
Baxter’s gallery to the Coffee Shop
contained the nexus of every person’s
trajectory within a 30-mile radius. At
the center of that web of radiating
lines, traced day to day by the 400
souls that call Marathon home, sat
Shirley Rooney, Main Street’s queen.
Shirley owned and operated
Shirley’s Burnt Biscuit in the tiny store-
front next to the Post Office. Her fried
pies and biscuits sustained the early
mornings of many a cowboy and coun-
ty worker, beginning their long days
before the sun had peeked over the
hills. Her hot coffee and maternal air
kept the locals warm all winter,
through the late Easter freeze that
inevitably takes the young apricots.
Shirley knew all the Marathon doings,
comings and goings. She knew every-
one and all their relatives, their family
tree, their provenance, their ambitions.
Many times, when asked a question by
a visitor about the history of our little
town, there was only one answer: “Go
ask Shirley.”
When Shirley retired from her bak-
ery, having sold it to Don and Jackie
Boyd, it was the end of an era. Getting
to work at 3:30 in the morning and
staying on her feet until well past noon
had been a labor of love and independ-
ence for her, after working in the
kitchen at the Gage Hotel for many
years. It was hard to imagine a Main
Street without Shirley, but I think
everyone was happy to know she
would have the rest and relaxation she
deserved.
When I look at Main Street now, I
think about all the changes that have
taken place in the past dozen years.
Where Shirley’s Burnt Biscuit was,
there is now Lechugilla Liquors. Mary
Baxter’s gallery is becoming the High
Desert Emporium. Cottonwood
Station became The Famous Burro,
which just recently reopened after sev-
eral years’ hiatus, to the delight of
Marathon. Nancy Lee has the Coffee
Shop, and the sign that Dan Picasso
painted on it the year I came to Texas
is still there, faded and charming. San
Rosendo Crossing is where the old
Cowboy Church used to be before it
became The Purple Sage Antique
Store. And there on the corner is The
Rusty Rabbit Antiques. Allen and
Sally Haley have just opened a delight-
ful café, Pickle Creek, where Don and
Jackie Boyd had been continuing
Shirley’s legacy with the Burnt Biscuit.
San Rosendo to catch up on the gossip
Allen makes wonderful little pies, rem-
of the day, I think back to those long
iniscent of the Queen of Main Street’s
afternoons at the Coffee Shop or the
confections.
early mornings at Shirley’s Burnt
I think too about what Main Street
Biscuit. Shirley Rooney is still a matri-
will look like as my two-year-old
arch of Marathon, though she is no
daughter grows. What changes will she
longer the Queen of Main Street.
witness, to make her nostalgic? When
Some of the other faces have changed,
she has guests, will she walk those short
but most of the topics of conversation
blocks and point to where the Gage
are the same, as is the feeling I get
Hotel used to be? As our demograph-
when I go to check the mail at the post
ics change and the oilfields spread in a
office and wind up spending half the
widening radius, I’m curious about the
day on Main Street. Everything
future of our little towns in many ways.
changes, but some things remain—I
I like to think that decades from now,
hope.
Main Street will
still be full of
tiny,
inde-
pendently-
owned stores,
where
the
shopkeepers
sit on benches
out on the
sidewalk,
Peggy Walker, Owner
passing time
with friends
and neigh-
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when I sit on
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Third Quarter 2014
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