Bedford, Virginia

"Worlds Best Little Town"

Page Three

The following excerpts are from a talk made by   T. W.     Richardson, postmaster at Bedford, before the Board of Trade at its annual meeting on Friday, March 18, 1921:

 I came to Bedford a little over twenty-five years ago. Bedford had then something around 2,000 inhabitants, and there were hardly half a dozen men in the place who had assets amounting to $25,000. Bedford now has over 3,000 population, and there are  at least half a dozen men who could scratch around and find $100,000 each.

There was a tumble-down store on the Roadcap corner with billboards on vacant fronts behind it.   Now, this corner with    its terrazzo floors, splendid fittings and handsome clerks has been built in less than fifteen years, and Fizer's store and the Gills building not long before.  

When I walked out Longwood Avenue on my first trip to Bedford, I passed the house now occupied by Ellis Bibb, the next was Mrs. Lee’s and the Judge Tucker's (the John Goode house). The next building on that street was at the Forks of the Road. Call to mind the handsome residences on that street now. Look at the fine dwellings on Avenel Street, only one of which was there much less than twenty-five years ago.   Those of us who were here at the time will never forget the old board walks and the mud and slime of some of our principal streets, hack owners sometimes actually refusing to take their teams to the station at the worst seasons. 

This has all been changed by the enterprise and progress of Bedford Citizens. All the principal streets have concrete sidewalks; there is about a mile of brick paved streets and several miles of macadam.