Landmark Auburn bookstore marks 50th anniversary


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AUBURN, Ala. (AP) — Auburn's downtown commercial landscape has shifted over the years, as businesses have come and gone, while others have held strong_firmly planting their roots with no intentions of giving up their spot in the Loveliest Village on the Plains.

"When we came here, there was a Jack's down there on the corner across from the Chapel at the university, and there was a Stoker's restaurant," Rosemary Anders recalled. "And there was the War Eagle Supper Club that made the best pizza in the whole world, and that was about it."

Anders' Bookstore, which opened in January 1966, is one of those businesses with firm roots in Auburn's soil_roots that have been growing now for 50 years as the community staple recognizes its golden anniversary this month.

Though the Anders family sold the store in 2005 and the business is now owned by Follett Higher Education Group, its legacy has paved the way for it to thrive under new ownership.

"I'm proud of the fact that in those days that my family was running that store; that I've always felt like Anders' Bookstore was one of the pillars of Auburn's community," said Auburn City Council member Ron Anders, whose parents Ronnie and Rosemary Anders founded the bookstore's Auburn location. "We weren't the biggest business in town, but we were a stable, consistent family business that could be counted on to be supportive of our children, our charities, our initiatives as a community; and that we certainly didn't just receive from our community, but we always gave back to our community."

Though Anders Bookstore as an Auburn tradition started 50 years ago, the origins of the bookstore itself go back even further.

Troy Anders, father of Ronnie Anders, grew up in Tuscaloosa. Upon returning from service in World War II, he and his brother were taken under the wing of bookstore mogul Paul Malone.

"He went to work for a place in Tuscaloosa called The Soup Store," Ronnie said. "And really what it was, was just an offshoot of the university bookstore. They had all these guys coming home from the war. And he'd serve hamburgers, hot dogs, breakfast, soup. That's where The Soup Store came from, and they would have a few books in it."

In 1953, Ronnie's father moved his family to Montgomery to open the first Anders Bookstore downtown, which serviced children in grades first through 12th. It was located in the building that today houses the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce.

At the same time, Troy's brother moved to Mobile to open another Anders Bookstore location to serve the University of South Alabama students. A third location was later opened in Lafayette, La.

"But in the mid '60s, the state Legislature passed a bill and started providing textbooks for all schoolchildren, which essentially put Anders' bookstore out of business," Ron explained. "So my granddaddy evaluated his options and made a decision to come to Auburn and open up a college bookstore."

Ronnie and Rosemary were living in Savannah, Ga., at the time that Ronnie's father asked them to come to Auburn to run the store. Despite inherent hesitations about Auburn, considering that Ronnie was an Alabama fan and Rosemary a Georgia Tech fan, the town quickly became home.

"It didn't take him long to figure out that he was an Auburn fan," Rosemary said.

"We got the store going and got it up in the spring of '66 and struggled till that fall, and then that fall we had a new freshman class, and that just kind of put us on the map, and we've been here ever since," Ronnie said.

As a small-town college bookstore servicing a university of only 8,000 students when it first opened, Anders served to meet students' needs while also eventually catering to a football-crazed community.

Anders' first Auburn store was set up in a former fraternity house turned boarding house_what is today Magnolia Place_in between College and Wright streets on Magnolia Avenue.

In 1979, McDonald's came to downtown Auburn, and Anders Bookstore moved to the lot adjacent to the fast-food giant, where it is still located today on the corner of Wright Street and Magnolia Avenue.

When it opened, Anders' main focus was on books, as well as supplies for art, architecture and engineering students, rather than Auburn souvenirs and memorabilia.

"They didn't open up with this big huge Auburn section of hats and T-shirts and stuff in 1966," said Ron, who was 2-years-old when the store opened. "That wasn't what they were primarily here to do. They were primarily here to sell textbooks and some supplies."

That changed, however, when coach Pat Dye came to town.

"The best thing that happened to the business, souvenirs, was Pat Dye coming to Auburn," Ronnie said. "Things started changing almost immediately when he came."

Ronnie and Rosemary remember when former Auburn University football coach Pat Dye brought the Iron Bowl to Auburn in 1989 from Birmingham where it was previously played.

"The business that game brings and brought at that time was just overwhelming," Rosemary said. "He put a new energy into Auburn, and I think Auburn kind of was always fighting to be as good as Alabama, and then not only did we get as good as Alabama, we got better."

The impact of the souvenir business was immediate on Anders Bookstore.

"It just changed our thinking a lot," Rosemary said. "We (Auburn) could be prosperous. And it was just fun with the restaurants all being busy and cars and hotels filled and everything like that, and of course that brought more business to Anders Bookstore. It directly affected us."

As a stable business, Anders was in turn able to extend a helping hand to the community that bolstered it.

With football Saturdays and the student population bringing in a slew of customers, Anders added to its ever-growing family of employees and supporters.

"I particularly miss the football fans," Rosemary said. "A lot of those people would come in, and I knew them, and they knew me . and we would discuss their family and discuss everything going on in their lives, and it was just like part of our family really, those people were."

As a child, Ron remembers spending time at the store while his parents were working on game days.

"It was a coming-home and seeing-people experience, which, it was our intention to make that reflective of the Auburn experience," he said.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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