Simmons celebrates 60 years in downtown Halls

This summer, Tommy Simmons celebrates 60 years as a merchant in downtown Halls. Most days, he can be found welcoming residents and visitors to his hometown and his shop on Main Street. His ready smile and cheery 'hello' are as much a part of downtown Halls as the landmarks that make it home. Simmons began working in his parents' store after school and on Saturdays when he was 11 years old and has worked at Simmons Men's Shop full time since May 1949.

The small town of Halls has seen many changes in the past six decades. And Tommy Simmons of Simmons Men's Shop has been right there on Main Street to witness them all.

In fact, if you consider the shoe and harness shop opened by his grandfather, L.W. Simmons Sr. in 1904, there has been a store owned by a member of the Simmons family on Main Street in Halls for over a century.

Today, residents of Halls and visitors to the community are greeted by Simmons from his regular seat near the open door of his clothing store. His cheerful 'hello' is a landmark in the community, the same as the bright-red caboose on the corner of Main and Front streets, the stately old Baptist church and the now-preserved Dyersburg Army Air Base.

Simmons Men's Shop boasts an atmosphere steeped in the tradition of quality service. The cash register, display cases and tables are original to the store, and Simmons has kept the layout the same.

"I learned (customer service) from my mother and some older merchants," said Simmons. "I was brought up in the old way. When the customer comes in, you say, 'Hello! What will you be having?' and when he leaves, you say, 'Come back again!' You won't find that in many stores now."

Simmons Men's Shop opened in October 1939, when Tommy Simmons was 8 years old. Today, the interior of the store still features the original cash register, display cases, tables and old-fashioned customer service from days gone by. 'It's the same layout,' said Simmons. 'It's just like it was in 1939. I've added a few new fixtures, but the counters are just the same.'

Simmons, himself, has worked at Simmons Men's Shop since he was 11 years old. This summer, he celebrates 60 years of full-time employment at his family store, which was opened by his parents in the autumn of 1939.

"The store was started in October 1939 by my late father and mother," said Simmons. "I was 8 years old. My daddy died in 1943 of a heart attack and my mother took over the store. I began working on Saturdays and after school as an 11-year-old boy. I finished high school on May 13, 1949. The next morning at 7 a.m., my mother and I opened the store and I have been here 60 years."

Simmons has watched his hometown change from a conservative farming community to a bustling World War II army base and return again to its agricultural roots. He served his neighbors through good times and bad, as the climate of his beloved town shifted from struggling to prosperous and back again.

"When Daddy opened in 1939, there were five other clothing stores here in Halls," said Simmons. "We offered work clothes and dress clothes. In the 1930s and '40s, a lot of the farmers would come into town in wagons. They didn't have cars. We were a conservative town. We were still living in the days of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover before the war."

World War II brought Dyersburg Army Air Base and soldiers who had traveled the world. The quiet town grew to accommodate a larger population and even became a Saturday night hot spot.

"There were 7,800 soldiers stationed on the base," said Simmons. "You couldn't walk down the street on Saturday nights. You stood in line at the picture show for the second show at 9 o'clock. Co-Colas were 5 cents, ice cream cones were 5 cents and hamburgers were 10 and 15 cents each. (The poolroom next door) sold beer for 15 cents a bottle and cigarettes. Of course, I was forbidden to go.

"The girls I went to school from '45 to '49 with tell me their mothers would not even let them wear shorts around the house," continued Simmons. "The Yankee soldiers' wives smoked cigarettes and they would drink a glass of wine. And they would come to town in shorts. Now, the churchwomen thought the town had come to an end, you can imagine. Those soldiers had lived all over the world. We learned everyone didn't live like the people of Halls, Tennessee."

The small town boasted three drug stores, three poolrooms and three barbershops during its time playing host to pilots and their families. And although the town enjoyed a sense of prosperity with the nearby air base, Simmons said times were hard for families during that era.

"During World War II, sugar was rationed and meat was rationed," said Simmons. "Also, shoes were rationed. You had to have stamps to buy sugar and meat. And when a man purchased shoes, he would give us a shoe stamp. At the end of the month, we'd deposit those shoe stamps with the Bank of Halls and it went to an international shoe company where we could get more shoes.

"Tires and gasoline were rationed," continued Simmons. "Overalls and white shirts were rationed. We kept customers' names and sizes in the back of our catalog and we'd say 'I've got some overalls for you or a white shirt.' They wouldn't ask what kind of collar it had, they were glad to get a white shirt."

When the soldiers left, it was back to farming.

"We had four cotton gins in Halls during World War II," said Simmons. "(There were also) two sawmills and a canning factory that canned tomatoes. The label they would use said, 'The Pride of Halls.' It gave a lot of people jobs in the summer before cotton picking started. On Friday and Saturday, fishermen would bring their fish to the corner of Main and Front streets, and they would sell their fish in the open air. Catfish and Buffalo."

Simmons Men's Shop still sells overalls, men's clothing and Red Wing Shoes, but business has changed for the store since Tommy Simmons began working there as a young man.

"During the war, salesmen would come by the store," said Simmons. "Now it is a catalog and an 800 number. Men don't dress up like they used to."

Halls returned to its agricultural roots, but that industry has also changed since the days of small farms and sharecroppers.

"A lot of the city fathers thought that we didn't need factories - this was a farming community," said Simmons. "(But) business picked up in Halls in March of 1969, when Tupperware started full-time production out here. When Tupperware left, it hurt the town. Business went down in 1980 when interest rates went up to 16 percent and Wal-Mart started building stores around here and Ripley. It's big farmers, now, and Wal-Mart has killed your small country towns."

In 2004, Simmons positioned his chair across the street as the bank next door relocated him to restore his family's namesake. When his merchandise was moved back in, it was as though he'd never left.

"This is just an old-time store," said Simmons. "You've got to like this stuff. You've got to have a knack for it. This store has been my life."