buttercup
US 401
Society Hill, SC
Fabulous old plastic-fantastic sign! The bottom part, hanging below the sign, is extremely faded, but I think it says "soda shop" and below that, "fountain service". And, easier to read, "quality checkd" just above "ice cream".
I did a little online digging regarding Buttercup Ice Cream and found the following, along with some great old photos, at the fb page for "Historic Hamlet, North Carolina":
"The L.A. Corning family came to Hamlet in January of 1920 from Elmira, New York. Mr. Corning had owned a drugstore in Elmira and had experimented with making ice cream. It had done so well, he sold the drugstore and built an ice cream plant. That, in turn, was so successful that a milk products plant bought him out with the condition that he never build another ice cream plant within 500 miles of Elmira. He tried different jobs after that, but his wife could see that he was unhappy so she told him she would move wherever he wanted to go. After some research, he saw that Hamlet had the crossroads of the railroad in the South, so he came down, bought a tract of land from Mrs. Lum Smith near the southbound tracks out of Hamlet, and took a picture of Front Street to take back home to show his family the new town they would be living in. Returning to Hamlet, he built his new ice cream plant and Buttercup Ice Cream was born.
Corning passed away in 1954, but his family continued the business for another fifteen years. With mounting competition, the family sold out to Coastal Dairy Products in 1969 and the name was changed to Mello Buttercup. Coastal continued operations in Hamlet for the next nine years, closing the Hamlet plant in 1977, consolidating operations in its Wilson, NC plant."
buttercup
US 401
Society Hill, SC
Fabulous old plastic-fantastic sign! The bottom part, hanging below the sign, is extremely faded, but I think it says "soda shop" and below that, "fountain service". And, easier to read, "quality checkd" just above "ice cream".
I did a little online digging regarding Buttercup Ice Cream and found the following, along with some great old photos, at the fb page for "Historic Hamlet, North Carolina":
"The L.A. Corning family came to Hamlet in January of 1920 from Elmira, New York. Mr. Corning had owned a drugstore in Elmira and had experimented with making ice cream. It had done so well, he sold the drugstore and built an ice cream plant. That, in turn, was so successful that a milk products plant bought him out with the condition that he never build another ice cream plant within 500 miles of Elmira. He tried different jobs after that, but his wife could see that he was unhappy so she told him she would move wherever he wanted to go. After some research, he saw that Hamlet had the crossroads of the railroad in the South, so he came down, bought a tract of land from Mrs. Lum Smith near the southbound tracks out of Hamlet, and took a picture of Front Street to take back home to show his family the new town they would be living in. Returning to Hamlet, he built his new ice cream plant and Buttercup Ice Cream was born.
Corning passed away in 1954, but his family continued the business for another fifteen years. With mounting competition, the family sold out to Coastal Dairy Products in 1969 and the name was changed to Mello Buttercup. Coastal continued operations in Hamlet for the next nine years, closing the Hamlet plant in 1977, consolidating operations in its Wilson, NC plant."