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The original Baby Jim's is being restored--as a birthday surprise for the founder of the Culpeper snack bar Date published: 7/4/2009
BY DONNIE JOHNSTON Birthday gifts are always a tough call, especially for adults. And by the time a man reaches 80, he pretty much has what he needs, which makes gift selection even harder. For weeks, Collis Jenkins and his mother, Pauline, considered any number of gifts they might give his father and her husband for his 80th birthday. They settled on a piece of the past. Sixty-two years ago, at the age of 18, Collis C. "Baby Jim" Jenkins opened a snack bar in a small alley on North Main Street in Culpeper. It was the town's first fast-food carry-out establishment and it was housed in a small aluminum trailer that Jenkins bought used in Northern Virginia for $1,000. Baby Jim's Snack Bar became so successful that it quickly outgrew its home in the alley, and in 1955 Jenkins moved his business to the basement of a large house about a block away. That eliminated the need for the aluminum trailer. It was moved to a farm that Jenkins owned, where it sat in the woods for years until it was moved to another farm. Its days as a fast-food establishment forever gone, the 8- by 9-foot metal structure ceased to have any practical purpose. Still, the trailer where Jenkins began a prosperous business had great sentimental value, so it was not discarded. At some point, however, even sentiment wanes and there came a time when the structure where Baby Jim dished out hamburgers and hot dogs to hungry customers was turned into a henhouse. Then, even the chickens abandoned the structure, which had by now really fallen on hard times. But those days are past and now the original Baby Jim's Snack Bar has experienced a rebirth. Three weeks ago, the aluminum and steel structure was hauled from the woods to The Sign Shop, where owner Mark Hayes was asked to bring this piece of history to life again. "We had talked about fixing it up for several years," Collis Jenkins says. "With my father's 80th birthday coming up [on Sept. 16], this was the time." A COLORFUL REBIRTH For Hayes, it was a rush job, to say the least, because Collis wanted the trailer completed in time for this afternoon's Fourth of July parade in Culpeper.
Read more stories about Culpeper Date published: 7/4/2009
Would be pretty cool if they could use it as a mobile location to setup at fairs/festivals to sell food out of. Still pretty neat to see an old piece of history being restored like that. Will be interesting see what 'Baby Jim's reaction will be when he sees it.
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