Wards Corner Traditional Cache

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kd4ocg: This one is MIA.

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Hidden : 1/9/2009
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

This should be a quick park and grab in the Wards Corner area of Norfolk. A pen/pencil would not fit in this micro. Please BYOP.




Shortly after World War II, during its glory days, Wards Corner was heralded as "The Times Square of the South." That may have been an overstatement, but at the time, Wards Corner was a retailing giant. It was one of the nation's first suburban shopping centers and featured some of the region's most upscale retailers, including Hofheimer's Shoes.

At Hofheimer's, attendants would X-ray your feet before fitting you. The store had a live monkey named Lulu and tropical birds. There was also a Rices Nachmans, the equivalent of Dillard's. A Peoples Drug Store had the area's first 24-hour pharmacy. Customers would troop in from Virginia Beach and Suffolk to get late-night prescriptions.

Giant Open Air, now a Farm Fresh, was among the region's first 24-hour grocery stores. Students from Norview and Granby high schools would converge on the store's pizza restaurant after Friday night football games.

That changed when Alfred Ward opened a combination grocery store and Texaco filling station in 1910. It operated for decades on the site where a Rite Aid is now.

The area was named for the Ward family. Stories differ on how the name came about, but a popular one has it that a Ford car dealer wanted people to know they could buy French-made tin from Mr. Ward. In 1914, he printed up dozens of signs that said "Mr. Ward wants to see you at Wards Corner."

The name stuck.

Much has changed since. Competition from other shopping centers has left many storefronts vacant and run-down. The "Open All Night" sign on the old Peoples Drug Store is still visible, both a sign of the area's glorious past and its troubled present.

Wards Corner is at the intersection of Granby Street and Little Creek Road. A century ago, it was a small crossroads amid Norfolk County farm fields. Nearly 100 years after its birth, there is life in Mr. Ward's corner.


~~ Congrats to the FTF - Perabb ~~

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

anab

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)

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