The Bicycle Shop

Title

The Bicycle Shop

Artist

Susan Elizabeth Jones

Medium

Painting - Watercolor On Paper

Description

Downtown Columbia, Tennessee, is full of old, unassuming brick buildings. So it is with the brick two-story building on the corner of Rosa Parks Blvd, formerly E. 7th Street, and Main Street on the public square just east of the courthouse. It was built in 1857 and was the home to a wagon and plow business.

When I moved to Columbia in 2008, I noticed that there were very few thriving businesses in downtown Columbia but one that stood out was The Wheel, a bicycle shop, which I thought was odd. Most shops left downtown when the mall was built, but this business was here and beautiful and thriving.

It seems the owner opened the first and only bike shop in Columbia in 1973. AC Howell was employed at the Columbia Military Academy when he created The Wheel bike shop as a hobby or side hustle, and 45 years later it was still thriving.

The story is told that one day in walks Mike Wolfe, creator and star of the History Channel's hit TV show American Pickers. He fell in love with the old building and asked AC if he wanted to sell. To make a long story short, a deal was struck but only if the building remained a bicycle shop. Today Mike owns the building, the bicycle shop, and an adorable Air B&B upstairs called the Two Lanes Guesthouse which houses some of his most interesting, vintage “picks” including a 1951 mint green Vespa.

And as much as I love Mike Wolfe and the restorations and revitalization he has brought to Columbia, as well as a parade of celebrities, I love the historic building at 11 Public Square for another reason. It is the location where in May 1861, 120 men of Maury County mustered to form the Confederate States of America First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, brought to life through the 1882 Civil War diary of Sam Rush Watkins titled Co. Aytch. Watkins was one of only seven men to survive every one of its battles.

Born June 26, 1839, in Maury County, Watkins was 21 when he rushed to enlist in the army when Tennessee left the union in 1861.

Uploaded

July 17th, 2021

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