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I love this picture of downtown Lynchburg at Christmas in
1956. It looks festive and welcoming, like Bedford Falls in It’s a
Wonderful Life. It is also a reminder of what a bustling downtown
the city enjoyed for the first 75 years of the last century. By 1990,
when I returned home to work for Moore & Giles, I found the
downtown nearly vacated but with a bold master plan to save
and revitalize its historic treasures.
One of those buildings slated for renewal, the Craddock Terry
Shoe factory on Commerce Street, was where, in 1933, a then-
50-year-old Don Moore received notice that he had lost his job
in the purchasing department. The next month he founded the
Donald Moore sales company as a finder of footwear materials
for factories up and down the east coast. In 1935 he brought
his son-in-law, Vernon Giles, on board and the company was
renamed Moore & Giles. The ingenuity and fortitude of these
men during the most challenging economic time in our history
set an example that we still follow 86 years later. And the old
factory Mr. Moore worked in? If you are headed our way, book
your room at the magnificent Craddock Terry Hotel, one of the
crown jewels of our reinvigorated city.
R. SACKETT WOOD, PRESIDENT
Main Street, Lynchburg, VA, Christmas 1956 photo courtesy: Jones Memorial Library
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