Cotton Ketchie

Cotton Ketchie is a renowned artist, author, and photographer. He was born and raised in Mooresville.

Mr. Ketchie, how long have you been in Mooresville?
Huh. You gotta tell people this? 67 years.

Wow, that’s awesome.

Yeah. I was born here, right up there at this [old] hospital where the government’s south center is [now]. Yeah, I was born there in 1944.

You went to Mooresville High School?

Yeah. I graduated in 1962. In fact, we’re having our 50^th class reunion this weekend. It’s hard to believe. I don’t feel much like I’m 50 years old. I really don’t.

Do you have any stories from when you were in high school, around Mooresville?

In high school…I barely got through high school. I just went to high school, and I went to work as soon as the bell rang, up at City Grocery and Market up on Main Street. And I started there when I was in junior high school, 1959. So I’ve been working downtown since 1959. I took a little hiatus to work at Draymore. But most of the time, though, I’ve been [in] downtown Mooresville. I opened up my gallery. I left Belk’s [Department Store] – I worked at Belk’s for 13 years, from 1968 to 1980. I opened up my gallery in 1981, and I would have quit Belk’s earlier, but unemployment would have put me in a higher income bracket. [Laughs] But I quit Belk’s and opened up my gallery in a one-stairs room over John Franklin’s, Limited. It was Kelly’s Clothing Store then, and I was there six years. In 1987, Vickie [Mr. Ketchie’s wife] and I got married and we opened up the gallery where it is now [downtown Mooresville]. We’ve been there for 25 years, or whatever, since 1987. But when I was in junior high school, as a kid, I would help a guy deliver groceries for City Grocery and Market. Which, at that time, was where…I can’t ever think of the name of the restaurant. It’s the new one right there in town, across from Alexander Zachary [Jewelery Store].  

The Daily Grind?

Yeah, that’s it. Well, that’s where City Grocery and Market was. And then we moved it down to 148 North Main, which was in front of Wachovia [Bank]…well, Wells Fargo [Bank] today. We moved it down then there because the A&P store moved out to their new location, which was up beside where Enterprise Printing Company was on Main Street, they built a building. So they vacated that, and we moved City Grocery and Market down there, and I worked there until I went to work for Belk’s. And I’m writing a book called “Mooresville, the Way I Remember It, and Before” and I interviewed lots of people and got lots of history on that stuff, plus I’m taking pictures of businesses in downtown Mooresville, the way they look today, and I’ve dug up pictures of the way they used to look, and tell what was in them in the past, and what is in them now. And that’s what I’m working on now. I’ve been working on that for about four years. I’m working on my third novel, too.

It sounds like you’ve been very busy.

Yeah, I’m doing a lot of photography, too. A little painting. I’m trying to stay busy. [Laughs]

What are some of the most surprising changes in Mooresville that you’ve seen?

Belk’s moving out of downtown. That changed everything. You know, Duke Power bought that property in 1992 I think it was, and in 1993, they had sold it to the town and all this was torn down – People’s Furniture Store, Belk’s Department Store, the movie theatre – all that was torn down and bulldozed down. And I went across the street, in that vacant lot, and photographed our Main Street on that block there, then. And that’s changed dramatically, and for George’s Taxi Stand then, I painted that. Well, it’s not there now, it’s BB&T now, and there was another building beside of that, that he had a taxi stand in at one time. So did Flip’s Taxi. And we had three movie theatres when I was young.  We had the State Theatre, we had the Carolina Theatre where Alexander Zachary Jewelry is, and where Pie in the Sky is, that was Moore Theatre. And if you go through the Marcade to go back to Pie and the Sky from Main Street, you notice that tile floor. That was the barber shop. And the room where Mitchell Mack has his office and their Side Mack and Sons, that was the public bath because on the Mill Hill – this was a textile town – a lot of those houses on the Mill Hill did not have bathrooms. You know, the women would take sponge baths and stuff, but the men would go up there and take showers and get a shave sometimes, and stuff like that. But that was before my time. But my mother worked in the Mills, and my dad did, too. I wrote about that. The first two books I wrote were about growing up here in the 1950s. I was raised about three miles north of town. You ought to read them, they’re hilarious. Called “Memories of a Country Boy” and “A Country Boy’s Education.” And what I learned growing up, and what I shouldn’t have, and what I wished I’d have forgotten. They’re funny, but they’re true. Yeah, they’re a fun read.

What have been Mooresville’s “greatest moments” in your opinion?

Gosh, I don’t know about that. I know one of the worst moments I thought we had. That was when Burlington Mills closed because that cost a thousand jobs, you know, right off the bat. You know, that was horrific. We lost all the textile jobs. And probably some of the greatest moments was collective of the racing industry coming to town and kind of saving us. But I think one of the biggest changes in Mooresville, and I was on the Chamber Board [The Board of Commerce] at that time, was when we ran water and sewer to the interstate highway. And that’s when everything exploded out there. Up until that time, they had to have a septic tank. You had the Days Inn septic tank system out there. And I tell you, without water and sewer, everything would have stayed the same. And now, I call that “West Mooresville.” And that’s a big change. I very rarely go across “the bridge,” as I call it. It takes too long.

What are some of your fondest memories of Mooresville?

Probably working at City Grocery and Market. I loved that time, I really did. I was in high school and I worked at Draymore after I got out of high school and George B. Stevens’ company, and then I went to work for Draymore. I left Draymore and went back to City Grocery and Market and worked there full time for a couple of years. Those are some of my fondest memories, the people…I delivered groceries all over town to people who didn’t have automobiles and stuff like that, and didn’t have time…that was wonderful. We’d go in people’s homes and they wouldn’t even be home, and I had to put stuff in their refrigerator for them and do all that stuff. They’d leave the houses unlocked and there were just some fond memories and some wonderful, wonderful people, like me, who came from humble beginnings, you know? and they were just good, down-to-earth people.

The final question I have for you is what do you see in Mooresville’s future?

Hmm…probably, they’re going to develop the Gateway, coming in from Exit 33. And I think that will be four-lanes in the future - this is just what I think out – and it’s going to be lined with stores, just like Plaza Drive. And then I think they’re going to develop some on the West-East side of Mooresville, over here where we live. I think this will be developed more. Maybe not in my lifetime, but I can see it coming. Perhaps out North Main Street, that will be developed, and…see, when I was a kid, where Plaza Drive is did not exist. Do you know where the golf ball water tank is?

Yes, sir.

On Plaza Drive? That was my grandmother’s farm. And to go see her – there wasn’t a water tank there then – but to go see her, her driveway came out on Statesville highway, all the way up there. Do you know where the old bowling alley was? Do you remember that?

Yes, sir.

That’s where her driveway came out. And we couldn’t even go see her if it rained because she didn’t have gravel on her driveway, just red mud, you know, and it just…it was awful. But that’s where the driveway came out. I remember when they started developing the Plaza Drive. And when they finally finished it, they just put a stop sign on Plaza Drive and [Highway] 150 and [Highway] 115. Of course, that was Highway 21. And I remember when they built Highway 21, up at Shepherd’s Fire Department, that used to be the Brantley Road. It was a dirt road, and it came out over here on [Highway] 150, which we called the “River Road.” And when you went down by where the Burger King is…you go down McClellan Avenue, the road just curved right there. There wasn’t any Plaza Drive, that was the “River Road.” And I would ride my bicycle, I was raised up in the Shepherds community, and I’d ride my bicycle up to where the Brantley Road was. There was a dirt road, and I’d ride down to [Highway] 150, or sometimes I’d take Oaks Road over and hit Talbot Road and I would come out over there and come over to Williamson Road, and then go down Brawley School Road. This was 16 miles down to where the river was, and I’d ride my bicycle just after the white line on Brawley School Road, and there wasn’t any traffic. It was just wonderful. It was wonderful, it was just…I look at it as the halcyon days of my youth. But I was already married when I still rode my bicycle down there, and it was just a wonderful time.

And what I do see in the future, I do see all the streets paved in Mooresville in the future. They just finished (I think) paving Gant Street and Ash Alley and Sherrill Street. Paving Sherrill Street was a big to-do. They finally got that done down there where Center Avenue ends. And I remember when Iredell Avenue ended right there at Central United Methodist Church where Academy Street was, Iredell [Avenue] went about two houses past that, because I delivered groceries there and that was it. And then when they put Iredell Avenue over where the Police Station is and McDonald’s over there, that was a big, exciting thing for Mooresville, to be able to do that without going way out of the way to go over there. So that was a big to-do. Just little things like that just keep adding up. You don’t think about them. I always said that nobody would ever pay to watch television, but we are, [laughs] you know. We didn’t have a TV when I was real young. My aunt won one. Over here beside the [old] hospital, they opened up the Medical Arts Clinic and Medical Arts Drug Store, where Black Eyed Peas (Restaurant) is now, that was a drug store. And they gave away a seventeen-inch Emerson television. And my aunt won it. And she lived with my grandma, who lived behind us. We would go down there on Saturdays and just take over their front room. We would watch “Big Talk,” “Super Circus,” and those cowboy westerns and we just loved them to death. And that was something, being able to watch TV. And I remember when we got our first TV; the screen was this big [signifies a small box shape] and the cabinet that held the TV was as big as that fireplace opening there.  And in 1957, WSOC came on there. Up to that time, it was just Channel 3 [News] in Charlotte, WBTV. But Mooresville is not the same. I tell everybody, “It’s not Kansas anymore, Toto.”

No, it’s definitely not the same thing it used to be. Grandmother’s farm was right behind our house and I was raised the way my daddy was raised. If it was good enough for him, it was good enough for us. You know, I remember killing hogs and chickens and cows and everything else. We raised what we ate. And going squirrel hunting after school to put food on the table. This is what we did. It was a wonderful life, though. The only thing I regretted about that – or didn’t regret it, but I hated doing it at the time – was picking cotton.  I hated it.

Thank you so much.

Well, that was perfectly painless, wasn’t it?