Sometimes a building housing an old business is demolished in a community, and it does not do much other than make someone thankful a blighted building has come down. That is particularly the case if there has been no business in it for some time.

 

Such was the case with an old building nearly the Kelly Hill section of Clarksburg. Earlier this month on one of the main roadways through Clarksburg – Pike Street – a building in an area of several well-established businesses was coming down.

 

I briefly caught a glimpse of the activity while heading home from work recently from Route 50. The next day I headed over to see what it was – and my suspicions were correct.

 

The building sits on a corner with two well-known businesses also in place. Those businesses would be Chunki’s Pizzas and Subs and Raymon’s Restaurant & Catering.

 

The actual address, the best I could tell, thanks to our friends at Google, was 401 East Pike Street. The last business I can recall there, and the sign still hanging on before the final blocks came down, was The Snack Shack.

 

No offense to the operators of that business, but it is not what stirred many memories in my much older mind. Years ago, actually decades ago, the building housed a Dairy Queen. Whether it was the first one in Harrison County, I have no idea. I know it was open in the 1970s, but I also know there was at least one, and maybe others open prior to that.

 

Regardless of the date, it was the first Dairy Queen I ever went to. In fact, it was an occasional summer treat for my brother, sister, and myself back in the days when you did not go out to eat every night and you did not have a food and treats either brought home or when you were out multiple times each month.

 

My mother would generally take us there after Sunday Bible School when I was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Our Saviour, also on Pike Street. My father would sooth any issues of getting an early haircut at a barber shop that was situated less than a block up the road and across from Southern States.

 

We would head there for the staple of the menu – an ice cream cone. I honestly could not tell you what else was on the menu, but I can remember this very clearly. The place was packed. There was no “inside dining” option as it was all order and to go.

 

There was generally a long line needing to be endured before being rewarded with the golden cone with the vanilla ice cream flowing from it. While I may have this wrong, I believe there was also a drive through. I believe that because the businesses after that had a drive through feature to them.

 

In fact, Clarksburg Mayor Jimmy Marino believes, like I do, the very first business after the Dairy Queen went out was a drive-through only business. While neither of us remembered the name, he did remember the owner.

 

“I am thinking the business that came after the Dairy Queen was the late 1980s or early 1990s, but I could be wrong. What I do know is the late Frank Scarcelli owned it,” said Marino. “It was a little drive through business where you could pull up and get a pack of cigarettes or some pop or maybe a snack. It was there for a while.”

 

For those who do not remember, Scarcelli eventually became the beloved head of the City of Clarksburg’s Public Works Department. Eventually, that business became a thing of the past.

 

After that, at some point, it became the Snack Shack. Whether there were other businesses between the time Scarcelli owned the building and the Snack Shack I have no idea, but I do know the building met its demise.

 

The bad news is that it is not being demolished to set the way for a planned business. Marino told me the city and the property owner came to an agreement to have the building demolished.

 

The good news is that a vacant, decaying building is gone and its demise could set the stage for something else. The sad news is a building that created a lot of memories for many of us from our youth is a thing of the past.

 

The thing is the memories are like the old Dairy Queen building itself – sweet.

 

P.S. – If anyone has any additional information or memories of the building, please feel free to add it to the comment section below.

 

Editor’s Note: Top two photos show a few pictures of the demolition process involving the building, while Clarksburg Mayor Jimmy Marino is shown below.