| When E. T. Saliba was born in
the village of Bteghrine, Lebanon in 1880, halfway around the world, Poplar
Head was the name of a settlement of several families established around an
ice-cold wellspring at the crossroads of Old Indian Trails. five years
later, more than 100 residents unanimously voted to incorporate the town and
adopted the name of the nearby post office, Dothan.
When Saliba was 14 years old, his father died.
He went to work in a silk factory to support his mother and three brothers.
He saved enough money to buy a ticket to the United States to visit
relatives and arrived in Savannah, Georgia in 1898. While staying with
friends in Ozark, Saliba rented a horse and carriage and ordered merchandise
from Savannah in order to sell door-to-door in the area. By 1990 when Saliba
drove his wagon of goods in downtown Dothan, the young town was home to more
than 3,800 people and boasted a railroad, a grammar school, six churches and
electric lights.
In 1904 when Elias Thomas Saliba was
visiting friends in Moultrie, Georgia, he met and married Rose Khassouf.
Impressed with the growth potential in
Dothan, elias Thomas rented a building at 104 E. Main Street and opened his
first grocery store. the next year, he relocated on the northwest corner of
Main Street and St. Andrews Streets in what was later known as the Page Drug
Building, and he sent for his brother Mose to help him operate the market
and lunch stand. The two brothers began work on the cellar in the rear half
of the building and ordered some fresh fruit from a friend in Moultrie. The
cool, dark, basement slowed the ripening process and created an air of
mystery on which Elias Thomas capitalized. Customers were curious about the
clusters of yellow crescents hanging in the store and asked Elias Thomas for
an explanation. "Why, these are bananas," he said with a smile. "I've just
baked them in my basement oven. Buy them while they are fresh." And buy them
they did. By 1903, Elias Thomas could afford to send for this mother and two
youngest brothers, Abraham, 16, and Michael, 12. When they arrived in June,
Elias Tholmas hired Mr. Roy McClure from the Dothan Grammar School (later
renamed Howell Elementary) to teach the whole family the English language.
Elias Thomas became an American citizen, and
the young entrepreneur saw that Dothan needed its own whole sale grocery and
tobacco dealership. Before establishing the new business, he gave his fruit
and grocery store to Mose and Mike and opened another store at 122 E. Main
Street for his brother Abe. Dothan Mayor, Buck Baker, sold Elias Thomas four
lots in the first block of South St. Andrews street, between main street and
the Central of Georgia railroad tracks. Elias Thomas then contracted with
John William Baughman, a Wiregrass builder, to construct a two story
building with a basement and he town's first elevator. The walls were to be
three bricks thick and a platform elevator for loading merchandise would be
central to the building, connecting the basement with the top floor offices.
The face of the building, with its two matching archways on either side of a
larger central archway, hints at the purpose of the first floor. Elias
Thomas had devised a clever scheme for unloading and reloading cargo brought
in from railroad depots and nearby docks. A horse-drawn wagon, filled with
merchandise, would enter the southern archway at street level, move along a
semi-circular drive inside the building, and exit through the northern
archway. Workers, protected from sun and rain, would stand on platforms
built at wagon height all around the inside of the building, and empty the
huge wagon as it moved past them. some merchandise would be sent to the
basement for storage, while other items would be organized to fill orders
from Wiregrass merchants. The wagon would then re-enter to be loaded for
delivery to nearby stores or for shipment by rail to towns as far away as
Tallahassee, Florida and Montgomery, Alabama.
The loading process itself, a combination
assembly line and drive-through, was unique enough to attract the
townspeople's attention, but Elias Thomas didn't stop there. He asked J.G.
(Montana) Owens, a horse and mule dealer, to bring back two horses from his
next buying trip out West. He didn't want just any two horses, these would
be Clydesdales, immense animals bred especially for the strength needed to
pull heavy loads. With their "feathers", the long flowing hair below their
knees, the horses became showpieces drawing sightseers from across the
Wiregrass area. With Elias Thomas a well' ingenuity and flair, the
business thrived. He was the areas sole distributor of Brown Mule Chewing
Tobacco and King Edward Cigars. Sales were so high that the cigar company
surprised him with a Christmas gift of 100 boxes with his own portrait on
the lids instead of Edward's.
During his time in Dothan, Elias Thomas
became a Mason. He was a member of the Yorkrite Masonry, which includes
Chapter, Council and Commandery. He was also a recipient of the Maltese
Cross, indicative of the Knights of Malta, one of the three orders of the
Commandery. In 1912, Elias Thomas planned to take his wife, Rose, and their
children to Lebanon for an extended visit. Before they left, he sold the
business to the Jackson Grocery Company, who agreed to lease the building
for 10 years. While in Bteghrine, Lebanon, Elias Thomas started a new
business and was elected mayor of his village. For his dedicated work in
establishing fourteen rural schools, he was decorated by Czar Nicholas of
Russia and presented a magnificent sword with his name carved on the blade.
Elias Thomas' return trip to Dothan was
again delayed, this time by war. The Lebanese people had no food or money,
but Elias Thomas managed to obtain groceries and sold them to the villagers
for I.O.U.s At the age of 30, Elias Thomas Saliba was assassinated. His
widow returned to Dothan with their six children and rented the landmark
building to various tenants from 1022 to 1940. At that time, her sons began
to use the facility for several different purposes, including a roofing
business, furniture sales and an optometry practice. As E. T. Saliba's sons
relocated their businesses and retired, the structure joined its neighbors
in the cemetery of vacant buildings. It was abandoned by merchants in the
downtown area. In the 1970s and 1980s Dothan retailers flocked to the new
shopping malls , and residents moved away from the center of town toward and
beyond Ross Clark Circle.
In June 1984, Dr. Robert Johnstone purchased
the Saliba Building from Elias' son, Albert. The sale included a provision
that the large block leasing "E..T. Saliba--Established 1900" would remain
intact at the top center of the building. Johstone planned a full
restoration of the exterior and hired a Montgomery architectural firm,
Watson, Watson, & Rutland, to ensure compliance with the guidelines set by
the Secretary of the Interior for the Rehabilitation of Historic Structures.
To qualify as a true historic restoration, eighty percent of the exterior
would have to be returned to its original form, and no structural additions
could be attached directly to the building. Layers of paint were scraped to
eveal the original red and orange brick and boards were removed from the
windows and archways. To provide access to the rear parking area for the
second floor offices, workers constructed a detached stairwell and matched
new brick and mortar to the old.
The Saliba Building Restoration Project by
Southeast Development Company was so successful that in September 1985 it
won the annual Preservation Award, given to one of seven nominees that year
by the Historic Chattahoochee Commission. As a result of that award, the
building was listed in the National Register of historic Places. That is all
part of the legacy of Elias Thomas Saliba, a Lebanese immigrant who settled
in Dothan in 1900 and left an indelible mark on this Wiregrass town.
- Savannah to Ozark to Dothan
- 1900 opened a grocery and lunch stand
next door to Blumberg's
- After sending money to his brother to
come to Dothan he moved his business to the northwest corner of Main and
North Saint Andrews in the building that today is known as Page Drug
Building. That corner had been the home of a butcher shop that was open
only on Saturdays. Since there were no refrigerators in town most of the
women did their shopping on Saturdays, the butcher would kill a hog and a
beef or two early on Saturday morning and then hang the fresh meat in
screen wire cages in his store. When the customer pointed out the cut of
meat she wanted, the butcher shooed the flies away from the screen and cut
off the customer's choice. When all the meat was sold, the butcher closed
his shop until next Saturday.
- In 1903, E. T. sent to Lebanon for his
mother and two younger brothers.
- E. T. gave his grocery store and lunch
stand to Mose and Mike so he could concentrate his time on establishing a
wholesale tobacco and grocery business on South Saint Andrews directly
behind what is today the Young Building.
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