This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

FIFTY-FOUR YEARS WITH W. A. McDONALD & SONS
It was in 1904 that Mr.	W.	A. McDonald from Holly Springs, Miss, moved	into Bay St. Louis and rented a home
at the	corner of Second Street	and	L. & N. railroad tracks. The founder of our Company had one son, C. C. McDonald,
and a daughter, Mary; and another son, John, was born soon after the family arrived in Bay St. Louis. Mr. McDonald was looking around for a business investment in Bay St. Louis and soon purchased the Bay Grain Company from J. A. Green. The Company was located at the L. & N. freight yard opposite and slightly west of the present passenger depot. The building is still in use as a cement and lime warehouse. The early business of W. A. McDonald was primarily feed and farm supplies, but several years later, grocery items, Owensboro wagons and other items were added. The business was then moved to an adjacent building which still stands on Necaise Avenue just at the crossing of the L. & N. tracks. Here a better line of grocery items was carried and some of the biggest selling products of that time were metal boxes of crackers, flour and the very popular confection of that time, the "Stage Plank". (Stage Plank was a flat pastry somewhat like a graham cracker and covered with pink confectioner's sugar.)
In 1925, "Mr. W. A." as	he had become known to so many citizens, built a	new building at the corner of Toulme
and	Easterbrook Streets. Here	he	launched a more extended business featuring	as previously feed, saddles, harness,
all types of farm supplies, groceries and building materials. It was during this period that the Company began to stress more and more the selling of tobacco. In 1927, Mr. "W. A." was joined by his son, John, as a full partner and the title of the Company became "W. A. McDonald & Son". Now the two partners began to develop the tobacco sales and wholesale grocery phase to a larger and larger extent. The firm began the shipment of tobacco to other towns in Mississippi and then later branched out to cover the entire South. This part of the business eventually became of a size to where customers were located in almost every town from Atlanta, Georgia to Fort Worth, Texas.
During the 1930's, this era in the Company's history reached its peak and then suddenly was destroyed almost overnight by a new form of legislation which began to apply in more and more states. This was the state tax stamp placed on each pack of cigarettes which meant that the Company would be restricted to selling in the one state of Mississippi. A few large accounts in other states still remained active, but these were only those large enough to do their own stamping.
It was now in the middle 1930's and the Company began to develop other departments and the wholesale grocery phase became the largest part of the business. Salesmen called on retail stores along the entire Gulf Coast and off the Coast some thirty or forty miles. In 1938, C. C. McDonald, the eldest son who had run a separate company for many years merged his company with that of his father and brother and once again the Company's name was changed by the addition of one letter making the new title "W. A. McDonald & Sons". With both sons in the business, the retail departments began to expand and greater emphasis was placed on building materials, hardware and furniture and appliances.
The founder of the Company, Mr. "W. A." died in January 1944.
In 1945, one of the sons, John McDonald returned from service in the U. S. Navy and the partnership now consisted of the two brothers and their mother. It was in this post war period that the Company began its greatest expansion program. A wood product company was built and incorporated under the name of Imperial Wood Products. The Company was now engaged in three levels of business, with retail, wholesale and manufacturing divisions. It was during this period, from 1945 to 1952, that the Company reached a peak in the number of employees and during part of this time, fifty-two employees worked in the various divisions of the business.
The Company has kept pace with the times and over the years some of the old	favorites	in merchandise have	grad-
ually disappeared. A few facts of interest gleaned from Company records are as follows:
The Company is the oldest Purina Feed dealer in the State of Mississippi and has been a Gibbons feed dealer since 1907.
In early 1930, the Company bought in one order, two carloads of Octagon Bar soap. Today this product is almost unknown.
The Company cqrried Owensboro wagons until 1948, when this product finally	disappeared completely.
One of the largest selling items in early years was oxfeed. This was when the	sawmills	were operating.	Today	it
is no longer made.