XXX Root Beer

The last store in Paluxy closed sometime in the late 1950s. The McRimmons were the last store owners. I remember it as being a general store but, the only single product I can actually recall is XXX Root Beer. It’s Funny how your memory of things long ago is so selective. The only time I remember actually drinking them was when my Grandpa Wann would buy them for me. They cost a nickel and the nickels had Buffaloes on them. I must have had them on some particularly hot days when I was really thirsty, because to this day no beverage has seemed as good as those root beers with my Grandpa. I like to think he always had the same drink and maybe he did or maybe not, but that is how my brain has decided to remember.

This store had the only hand operated gasoline pumps I ever remember seeing in actual operation. You pumped gas into an overhead graduated glass cylinder and then drained the gas from the cylinder into your car. I remember actually getting to do the pumping a couple of times.

In the back of the store was a wood burning stove which provided the only source of heat in the winter. For one year when the store was still open, the school arranged for a local man to pick up several local kids, including me, in his car ( a faded red and white 2 door 55 Chevy) and bring them to the store in Paluxy where we were picked up by the school bus. If it was a cold day, we would go into the store and huddle around this old wood burning stove. It was sure a lot warmer around that old stove than on an old leaky school bus for the additional 45 minute ride to school.