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The Last Hitching Post on Main Street
By Darrell Beck
 | | Last hitching post located on the right of the local grocery store.
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It was a busy Saturday morning at Jamison's Grocery Store on Main Street in Ramona. Young Harold Stephen had finished his regular chores of bagging potatoes, stocking shelves, sweeping floors and checking prices. He was now busy boxing groceries and carrying the heavy boxes to the customers' cars parked outside.
On his way back into the store, he noticed a lull in business and stopped for a few minutes to look up and down the street to check out the day's activity. He noticed about a dozen people on the dusty street, including ten automobiles and several horse-drawn rigs. There was also the usual activity at the Town Hall and library across the street.
Then his mind wandered back to times when Main Street was often a quagmire of mud during the winter and a deep-dust-pull during summer. He knew that the road through Ramona would soon be paved with an eighteen-foot-wide ribbon of concrete all the way from Foster to Julian, and he thought it would be a great improvement.
He could barely remember a time when most traffic was horse-drawn rigs or riders on horseback. Today was a new era featuring the emergence of the automobile and the demise of horsepower. Nevertheless, there in front of Jamison's Grocery Store in the year 1925 stood the last hitching post on Main Street.
As Harold finished loading the last box of groceries and thanking the customer, he noticed a lone rider coming down the street on horseback. It was Myrtle from south of town, mounted on her old mare, Molly. He recognized Myrtle because of her large sombrero and the presence of two large saddle bags that she always used to haul goods home from town. Harold hurried back into the store as he knew she was coming into Jamison's to get her weekly supply of groceries.
Harold was watching from the storefront window as Myrtle rode up to the hitching post and swung her hefty beam from the saddle, then stepping to the curb, she flicked the reins around the hitching rail in a neat half-hitch and had a few words with Molly. After pulling up her tight trousers, adjusting her belt and checking her purse, she entered the store where the normal pleasantries were exchanged with Harold and the clerk at the checkout counter.
Myrtle had been in the store about five minutes, and after having selected some nice cabbage, was presently inspecting a variety of canned beans when Harold looked outside and noticed that Molly seemed very uneasy. In short order, Molly, who was still attached to the hitching rail, backed up to the front door and proceeded to decorate the sidewalk in a big way.
Because there weren't many horses around during that time, these kinds of accidents didn't happen very often. Nevertheless, it was Harold's duty to take care of such matters. Harold cursed under his breath as he dropped what he was doing and went to the back room to get a shovel, broom and a cardboard box.
Harold had just collected the steaming mess into the box and had folded down the lids when he looked up to see Mrs. Curtis walking down the street toward the store. As she approached Harold, she said, "Good morning, and what do you have in the box, Harold?"
Harold was quite embarrassed and didn't want to say he had a box of fresh horse manure, but he couldn't evade the question posed by Mrs. Curtis. So he opened the box for her personal inspection. After sticking her face into the box, thus discovering its smelly contents, she said, "Why, Harold! Why didn't you tell me what was in the box?" Harold was tongue-tied and could only blush and take the box to the back room.
Due to his extreme discomfort over this unpleasant experience, Harold went to work early Monday morning, at which time he dug up the hitching post and turned it into firewood.
Such is the story of the last hitching post on Main Street.
Darrell Beck is the author of "On Memory's Back Trail: A Story History of Ramona and the Backcountry of San Diego County." For information about the book, contact the author at 760-789-2534.
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