Thomas A. Cox arrived in Marion from Union County in 1871 to be in the implement business and became one of Marion’s leading businessmen.
On April 15, 1903, Cox formed a partnership with Albert M. Townsend in the implement business under the firm name of Cox & Townsend. They handled all kinds of farm implements wagons, buggies, tack and related items. Through this same period of time, Cox served as a director for the Marion State and Savings Bank.
By 1906, the partnership was expanded to include George C. Heyde. The business was then called Heyde-Cox-Townsend Hardware Company and was located at 212 N. Market in the J.B. Heyde building. The store front can be seen in the post “200 Block of N. Market Street in 1907“.
In 1912 when T.A. Cox and his son, Harry L. Cox, purchased the W.E. Campbell Hardware Company located in the southeast corner of the public square it was at that time a single store room 22-1/2 feet wide by 100 feet in depth. This lot was the original location of the first two courthouses for the county. After the last courthouse in this location burned down in 1875, the next notes found on it was the purchase of the lot in 1885 by Milo Parks, who constructed a two story brick building in that year. That building likely went away with the fire on the February 2, 1899 that decimated the block.
In 1915 the building was extended to College Street three stories in height. This land, behind the store, was originally a vacant lot on which Cox’s hitched their horses and delivery wagons.
In 1922, Thomas A. Cox and his son Harry Cox purchased the building, then occupied by the B.B. Confectionary, due west of the original building. The B.B. Confectionary was operated by R.W. Boatright and the building was owned by the father of Arthur Aikman. At that same time, T.A. Cox retired and turned the business over to his two sons, Harry and Clarence Cox.
On Christmas eve, 1934, fire damaged the second floor of the Cox owned building in which was the Simonton Variety store was located at that time and the Farm Bureau and Twin Oil Companies had their offices on the second floor. Dee Small was the farm adviser at that time.
Clarence Cox died in July, 1937 leaving Harry Cox as the sole owner. Clarence had, early in his life, been a school teacher and served in WWI in 1918.
In 1946 they took over the building on the west and expanded their furniture business with modern furniture and display rooms. (Those who may still remember the original Cox building before the fire might recall that the two halves of the store had a few places between the buildings that had been opened up to allow it to be one store.)
Upon graduation from college in 1944, Gene Cox joined his father, Harry L. Cox, in the business and following his father’s death in July, 1947, managed the business himself. His mother, Mrs. Harry L. (Mabel) Cox retained ownership of the building.
In April 1962 they held their fiftieth anniversary and in 1963 they increased the sales room by a complete modernization program that gave them nearly a third more space. They created a Gourmet Shop that was the only one of its kind in Southern Illinois and Gene Cox was named as 1963 “Man of the Year” by the Marion Chamber of Commerce in early 1963.
Unfortunately, on Monday, May 6, 1963, a fire in the basement of Goss Appliances located in an adjoining building burned the entire block to the ground.
Shortly after the fire in the same month, a deal was completed that gave Mrs. Harry L. (Mabel) Cox, mother of Gene Cox, ownership of three-quarters of the block on the public square that was burned out.
Sam Barbaro, who owned Barbaro’s South Side Tavern facing S. Market Street in the southwest corner, owned the other quarter of the block.
Mrs. Cox, widow of the late Harry Cox, owned the Cox Hardware and Furniture building and her son, Gene, owned the fixtures and the merchandise which was destroyed in the fire. Mrs. Cox was one of several bidders for the building formerly occupied by Goss Furnishings and Kay’s Store, located directly west of the Cox building. It was owned by Genesco, a nationally operated wholesale shoe firm in Nashville, Tenn.
The purchase gave Mrs. Cox ownership of the largest portion of land on the public square, with its’ approximately 100 feet of frontage. She now owned three-fourths of the block which burned out.
The building was almost immediately rebuilt as a one story building with a full basement floor that spanned the entire width of the block.
Mable Cox passed away in late October 1977, leaving the real estate to son Gene Cox who continued operating the business till his retirement in 1982.
Gene Cox, who lived at 502 S. Market Street, retired to New Orleans, Louisiana where he lived until hurricane Katrina. After Katrina he moved to a retirement community in Huntsville, Alabama where he died July 14th, 2009 at age 90.
Today, in 2013, the building still exists and houses the Salvation Army store.
(Data extracted from the 1905 Souvenir History; Williamson County in the War, 1919; Marion Daily Republican articles and obituaries; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 09/02/2013)