Growing Up on the Square: Dr. Joe Bennett Remembers Downtown Harrison

When Dr. Joe Bennett talks about downtown Harrison, he does not have to imagine what the square was like in the 1930s.

He was there.

His memories reach back to a downtown filled with stores, restaurants, buses, pharmacies and people coming into Harrison from throughout North Central Arkansas.

But when he talks about childhood, two places rise quickly to the surface.

His father’s drugstore.

And the picture show.

Bennett Drug Store

Bennett came to Harrison as a small child after his father, a young pharmacist, purchased a drugstore on the square in 1929.

The building is still there today. It is now home to Three Wishes for Ruby’s Residents.

Before Bennett’s father owned the store, it had been known as Palace Drug Store. Old photographs show the storefront before later changes to the surrounding streets dramatically altered the appearance of the corner.

Bennett’s father worked extraordinarily long hours building the business during the Depression.

That schedule meant his mother often took young Joe along when she went places.

“I was her companion,” he said.

And one of their favorite destinations was the Lyric Theatre.

Going to the Picture Show

Bennett did not call it going to the movies.

Like many people of his generation, he remembered going to the “picture show.”

Movies were a major part of life in small-town America during the 1930s, and the Lyric was at the center of entertainment in Harrison.

Bennett remembered his mother taking him there beginning when he was about six years old.

Among the stars he saw on the screen was Shirley Temple.

Decades later, the memory still made him smile.

“I was deeply in love with her,” he said.

He was, as he quickly pointed out, a little boy at the time.

“She was a cute little actress in my life.”

The memory is sweet now, but it says something larger about what places such as the Lyric meant to children growing up in Harrison.

The theater was not simply a building downtown. It was where another world appeared on the screen.

A Busy Downtown

The Harrison square Bennett remembers was busy.

He recalled men’s clothing stores where employees came to work in suits and vests, several shops catering to women, restaurants and businesses extending beyond the square onto the surrounding streets.

Much of the region’s commerce was concentrated in Harrison.

Travel to Springfield was difficult over winding roads. Little Rock was far away. Fayetteville was much smaller than it is today, and Mountain Home had not yet experienced the growth that would come later.

Harrison served as a business center for a large part of North Central Arkansas.

There was, as Bennett remembered it, plenty of hustle and bustle.

Trailways buses came through town. Stores surrounded the square. People came downtown to shop, eat, work and visit.

For a boy whose father worked there nearly every waking hour, downtown was simply part of everyday life.

Two Places That Stayed With Him

Nearly a century later, many of the businesses Bennett remembers are gone.

Buildings have disappeared. Roads have changed. Storefronts have changed names and purposes many times.

But when Bennett looks back at his childhood, two places remain especially clear.

His father’s drugstore.

And the Lyric.

Both buildings remain part of downtown Harrison today.

The former Bennett Drug Store now serves a very different purpose as Three Wishes for Ruby’s Residents. The Lyric remains a place where people gather for entertainment, just as they did when Bennett was a boy.

For Bennett, though, they are also something else.

They are pieces of childhood that never completely disappeared.

A pharmacy where his father worked from morning until late at night.

A theater where his mother took him to the picture show.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, a little boy sitting in the dark, watching Shirley Temple on the screen and falling deeply in love.