A cinderblock building in the 200 block of E Street, between Belt and Broadway, stood for 77 years a few hundred yards from the shore of the cove on Lake Eufaula.

For the first 25 years or so it was Ernie’s Grocery and Market, where customers would buy a cola from the old-fashioned chest Coke machine and stand around and talk.

Or baloney and bread for a picnic.

Or meat from its wellknown meat market.

For the next 50 years or so, it was a dance studio, or carpet cleaning business, or mechanic’s shop where antique cars were brought back to life.

The building is part of the memory of Eufaula.

On Tuesday, Feb. 4, the old building came down, to make room for a garage.

Owner Linda Johnson, whose house is at 222 E Street on the same lot as the building, was sad to see the building go but knew it was time for the old structure to be taken down.

Ernie Hrdlicka and his wife Roberta built Ernie’s Store and Market in 1948.

Their grandson, Mark Warren, who lives in Tulsa attended the razing of his grandfather’s former neighborhood market when it was taken down on Feb. 4.

“I remember it being a focal point of the community,” he said. “They had a coke machine, an old chest, and people would stand around and visit and have a Coke. They had a meat counter and were very particular about the cleanliness. People would come to shop there all the time. There was always a string of cars there all the time. It was a focal point of the community back in the day.”

The Hrdlicka family originated in Czechoslovakia.

“His grandfather came from Czechoslovakia. Ernie and Roberta came from Minnesota and Nebraska and wound up in Luther. I don’t know why, probably because it was close to Oklahoma City.”

The couple moved to Eufaula in 1938. Ernie worked for M&P stores. Eventually the couple moved Okmulgee and then to Luther, near Oklahoma City, but returned to Eufaula in 1948 and built the store before construction on the Eufaula Dam began in 1956.

The location was ideal for a store.

“Business boomed. Everyone coming to the lake would stop and buy baloney and bread to picnic on,” Warren 11-28 IJ.qxp_IJ/DEMO TEMPLATE 11/25/19 3:29 PM Page 23 said.

When Ernie retired, he eventually sold the site and started a second career, renting six fishing cabins at Longtown.

“He did that for 20 years,” Warren said.