Parting the Red Sea was a piece of cake compared to getting a Dollar store in Monongah. But the Huntington Bank building finally has been razed.

It only took 4 years from the announcement that Monongah was getting a Dollar store at Camden Avenue and Walnut Street till the walls, just like Jericho, came tumbling down.

Hallelujah!

Debbie Anderson remembers the Huntington Bank as “the best place I ever worked.”

My cousin, Mary Chris Fazio Ramsey, Class of 1969, also worked there. It was down the street from the Pike Street home she loved in with her husband, Tom Ramsey, Class of 1969, the one that her aunt and uncle and mine, Steve Kerekes and Helen Olesky Kerekes, built a half-century or so ago.

It will be called a Family Dollar Store, even though Family Dollar was acquired by Dollar Tree, which is keeping the Family Dollar name on many of the stores.

The one in Worthington is a Dollar General. The other Family Dollar store is on East Park Ave in Fairmont across the street from Domino’s Pizza. The one at Country Club shopping center and the mall is Dollar General.

 

Dollar Tree, whose headquarters is in Chesapeake, Virginia, has 4,900 stores. Family Dollar, based in Matthews, North Carolina, had 1,400 stores. Dollar General, out of Goodlettsville, Tennessee, has more than 10,000 stores.

When the first customer walks into the Family Dollar Store, no one will be more relieved than Monongah Mayor Greg Vandetta.

Getting from announcement to opening for business has been more difficult than climbing Mount Everest with an elephant on your back.

OK, Your Honor, I think that’s my last Dollar joke. Maybe.

For a video of Huntington Bank being  razed, click on https://www.facebook.com/michael.stewart.16547/videos/10206350416351706/

Bank building is history