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Phone 166 - A Resilient Tradition
George Keyes would continue running his store until his death in 1903, leaving ownership of Keyes Block to his daughter, Edna Arvilla Keyes. While the Keyes Central Boot and Shoe Store would close following her father's death, she would maintain a direct family connection to the property over the next seven decades, continuing to live in its residential unit and overseeing the growth of Keyes Block's commercial legacy until her death in 1972.
107 Bridge Street's grocery saga would begin soon after with the opening of Deachman and Weir's central grocery around 1903. However, it wouldn't be long before the Keyes family was once again in the thick of Keyes Block's commercial activities.
Calvin W. Moore was a grocer hailing from nearby Smith's Falls, Ontario. Having worked throughout the grocery business there for nearly a decade, he was eager to become a grocery store owner in his own right. He married Arvilla Keyes in 1915 and, much like George did almost 30 years before, Moore would move into the space below the residential quarters to establish his name in Carleton Place.
Moore's store was the site of sweeping changes in the grocery industry; as many goods and necessities became pre-packaged and mass-manufactured with product guarantee, the local merchant were gradually de-skilled, with their input and expertise on such areas as coffee & tea blending, usage of unfamiliar items and product quality being rendered obsolete. The windows, so crucial to George Keyes' Boot & Shoe Store, became a double-edged sword in the service of a grocery, for while they were a means of making a store stand out, the packaged goods that were culling the grocer's specialties were given exposure¹. Yet, continuing the reputation of resilience established by George Keyes, Moore would indeed establish his name, operating C.W. Moore's Central Grocery for 23 years until making way for a new tenant in 1942.
