Tiny old store on West Gentile Street used to connect Layton to quieter times

     What's left of "Bessie's" or "Staley's" today, center white building, on West Gentile Street.

THE watering hole and gathering place for west Layton was "Bessie's" or "Staley's" for more than 60 years, until the early 2000s.

Having started in 1939 at 1378 West Gentile Street, this little convenience store was likely the oldest and smallest continuously operated store in Layton and maybe in all of Davis County for its time. All other such "Mom and Pop" stores in Layton had come and gone -- it was the last holdout.

"It's a good watering hole. It has really been good for the community," Dan Layton, 70, a longtime Layton farmer, said of the tiny store back in 1998.

 Layton is one of the store's most loyal customers and has been going there since it opened.

"It's been a great thing. I'd hate to see it ever go broke," he said.

 

When the store opened, Layton's population was just 541 people. By 1998, it was nearing 60,000.

Sitting in the shadow of tremendous commercial development, the tiny store is about 750 square feet in size. Passersby new to the area may not even notice it along the roadside.

Officially titled G-Market in the 1990s, it was just a mile away from Wal-Mart and Layton's retail center.

Bessie and Trulley Staley started their store in the fall of 1939. They had previously operated a hamburger stand on Layton's Main Street, but that didn't work out.

It's uncertain whether the store was built out of an old railroad box car. Layton remembers it being constructed from scratch, but there are reports of its railroad heritage.

In any event, the store became an instant gathering place and a gossip house for farmers in the area.

"You knew what was going on," Layton said, explaining it wasn't malicious rumors the store promoted - just the truth.

"My whole family went up there for candy . . . It was just fun to be there," he said.

All the longtime west Layton families patronized the store - the Laytons, Stevensons, Flints, Adamses, Calls, Robertses, Simmonses, Boneses, etc. The store had several stools where people could sit down and order a hamburger or hot dog.

The Staleys were kind to people and gave groceries to people in need. They also donated bread for the sacrament service in the nearby ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"They were a friend and a broker," Layton said.

Stories say that neighborhood kids had charge accounts for candy at the store.

Mr. Staley died in 1959, and Bessie kept the store going. Some say she never left the store for 25 years - she was always there.

A daughter, Naomi Olson - an Annie Oakley type - helped Bessie keep the store operating for some 30 years. When Bessie passed away in 1989 at age 88, the store was leased to a couple of different owners. Greg Caldwell purchased it in June of 1991.

To Caldwell, having the store is more a hobby than a business.

"I thought it would be cute to have the store … It's a store for nostalgia and the community … I didn't buy the store to make money," he said.

Caldwell grew up in Paris, Idaho, where his father operated a similar country store - Country Cupboard. He finds it soothing to have the store. Although both he and his wife work full time at other jobs - he as an engineer and she as a therapist - they still did the bookkeeping and hired people to operate the store.

Caldwell said the store still offered hamburgers and malts and even retains some penny candy, though not as many kids come in as in former times.

Caldwell estimates 99-plus percent of his customers are regulars.

"We can serve lunch," he said. "It's a loyal crowd."

The store was open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday. It was closed on Sundays.

 Former Layton Mayor Jerry Stevenson, who lives just a block away, used to frequent the store once in a while. Many descendants of early west Layton families relied on the store.

Layton said many people came in both morning and afternoon, going to and from work, to get "a fix" - a big Coke.

-By the early 2000s, the store had closed for good, a casualty of the more popular convenience stores and also perhaps of some of the most loyal of customers passing away ...

-This story has been updated and was originally published in the Deseret News, by Lynn Arave, on July 27, 1998.