“It’s like playing a video game, I guess,” said Berkley Hudson. “Throwing papers, getting them on the porch. That’s fun. It’s a challenge. Some houses are farther back from the street, sometimes you’d have someone in the yard who’d try to catch it in mid-air.”
Hudson is one of the so-called “little merchants,” young men who ran paper routes for The Commercial Dispatch through the middle of the 20th century.
“The carriers of long ago used to all be pre-teen boys, mainly, that would deliver the paper in their neighborhoods,” explained Dispatch publisher Peter Imes. “I don’t know who gave them the ‘little merchants’ name.”
Hudson, a journalist, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri and author of “O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town,” started running a route in the early 1960s, when he was about 11 years old.
Like many other little merchants, Hudson said he inherited the job from his three older brothers, the eldest of whom started his route in 1945 or so. While they had the Downtown Columbus route, he had “the one next door,” stretching from roughly the Amzi Love Home on Seventh Street South onto the campus of Mississippi University for Women.
“I have an incredible fondness for it,” he said. “I like the freedom that I had, riding around on my bike, with nobody telling me what to do. I liked talking to people, I liked hearing their stories. Plus I was making money.”
Hudson said he was able to put back about $2,000 in the four years that he worked as a carrier, and that money served him well.
“I protected that money and I didn’t use it when I went to get my undergrad at Ole Miss,” he said. “Then I went to Columbia University to get a master’s degree in journalism, and I only had a partial scholarship. That $2,000 paid for the rest of it, so I could get my degree and not have any debt.”
Mike Crowder, who had an East Columbus route from 1965 to 1972, started the job a little older than many of his co-workers, and had his sights on something else.
“I started out riding a motorcycle,” he said. “I had a wonderful time (delivering papers), and it gave me a good living. I ended up buying my first car with my profits from the route. I bought a ‘68 Camaro, the payment was like $70 a month. I wish I still had it.”
Crowder, like Hudson, enjoyed the freedom.
“It was just a great experience,” he said. “I would pick up my papers and take them to Propst Park. I rolled mine underneath the trees, out in nature. On Sundays you had to deliver in the mornings, and it was always a challenge to get up that early after being out late.”
End of the line
For some of The Dispatch’s current 24 carriers, the transition to mail is bittersweet.
“I didn’t like it,” said Larry Cunningham of his reaction to hearing the news. “It’ll be all right, but I could’ve went for a little while longer.”
Cunningham has contracted to deliver for The Dispatch for about 12 years. His route encompasses most of Northside.
“I’m going to miss it a little bit,” he said. “It gave me something to do during the daytime other than just sitting out. And I’m going to miss the people.”
Diane Autry has been a carrier for nearly 30 years, and has a route that encompasses the area from the river to Mississippi University for Women, as well as East Columbus and New Hope.
She originally took the job because she had three-month-old twin girls, and it was easy to take them to work.
“The change definitely affects me quite a bit,” she said. “I enjoy it, and I have some customers that have been mine for the whole 29 years I’ve been doing this. It’s going to be a big change.”
Autry noted that she will still be delivering to racks.
“I’ve got about 20 stores, so it won’t completely take me out of the game,” she said.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
