Winn's - The Unfriendly Discount Miracle

I still remember the first time I went in Winn’s Cut Rate, a junky everything-but-the-kitchen-sink store a block off Broad Street, across from the old Kingsport Times News offices.

The reason I remember that first time so well is because it was also the last time I went in Winn’s Cut Rate.

I had ridden downtown with my dad and while he ran his hardware store on Supermarket Row, I was allowed to wander downtown. I started by walking to the library, browsing my favorite sections, the humor books and the ESP books, before heading up Broad.

There were stops at McCrory’s and J. Fred’s and Freel’s and all the other downtown staples before I decided to venture down Market.

I’d never been inside Winn’s. I’m not sure if I had ever even seen it. But it looked enticing, especially to a 10-year-old boy with his weekly allowance burning a hole in  his pocket.

The window was filled with hand-written signs for baseball cards, army canteens, air mattresses, tear gas pens, everything a kid would want.

I was wandering the aisles, examining anything that looked remotely interesting, when I heard a voice from the back, a gruff, unfriendly voice: “Can I help you?”

I responded, as if by rote, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” I had heard my mother say that a thousand times in stores.

“Well, if you’re just looking, then get out. This ain’t no museum.”

Wow, what a way to treat a customer. I beat a hasty retreat all the way back to my father’s store and told him about my confrontation with Mr. Winn. My dad just shook his head.

Over the years I would hear a similar story from many, many people.

I had heard it so often that when I moved back to Kingsport in 2002 to take care of my mother and started writing a column for the Times News, I knew I had to write about Winn’s.

I did in 2005.

I was reminded of the column a couple of weeks ago when a photo popped up in my inbox, the front of Winn’s, courtesy of my buddy Mike Milhorn.

I dug out that old column and started researching Winn’s on newspapers.com. If Winn’s was, as his sign advertised, “The Discount Miracle,” then newspapers.com is the Research Miracle, a tool that lets you search the text of thousands of old newspapers, including the Kingsport Times News.

Winn’s wasn’t just an unfriendly store, it was proudly so. In a 1967 ad Winn explained that philosophy:

WINN'S DISCOUNT STORE

THE UNFRIENDLY STORE

OUR POLICY

We don't invite you to come in, look around and say hello. We're not interested in polite conversation and chi chat. We are not a social institution. We are a business institution. We are interested in giving you speedy service at lowest prices. If that's what you wish, try us!

I just found that ad on newspapers.com a couple of days ago but it explains everything.

Here is that 2005 column I wrote about Winn’s:

The first great mystery of Winn’s Cut Rate was why it was called Winn’s Cut Rate. The owner wasn’t named Winn. He was named David Silber. There were rumors that Winn was a childhood nickname or that it was some sort of franchise.

The second great mystery was how Winn’s Cut Rate stayed in business. Winn - as everyone called Silber - was perhaps the worst salesman in history. Certainly he was the worst in Kingsport’s history.

Mike Milhorn remembers the first time he went in Winn’s. “My dad’s paint store was just down the street. I’d seen all the signs in his window for hunting and fishing stuff so I went in. He came out of the back and asked if he could help me. I told him I was just looking and he growled, ‘This isn’t a damned museum. Get the hell out of here.”

You’ll hear that story over and over from people who tried shopping Winn’s bargains when they were little kids. A surly owner who seemed more intent in running customers off than bringing them in.

And yet Winn’s Cut Rate was a Market Street institution for twenty years, from 1954 to 1974.

And also a Market Street legend because of Winn and his personality.

Winn’s Cut Rate, also known as Winn’s Discount Heaven, opened in Five Points in 1954, moving to 207 East Market in December of that year. It later moved across the street to 122 East Market, just a few doors from Central Barber Shop. That’s how Darrell Perry got to know Winn.

“They said he was a pharmacist by trade and came down here from Kentucky.”

Darrell especially remembers Winn’s marketing sense. “He did his own window decoration, lots of little signs.”

The signs would promote whatever Winn had on sale that particular week. One week a sign for shotgun shells caught Darrell’s eye. “He had them for a dollar a box. I went in and bought one. That made him mad. He said, ‘Them are for my regular customers,’ and wouldn’t sell me no more. So everybody that came in the barber shop that day I would give them a dollar and send them down there to get me a box. Finally when I sent my shine man Radford, Winn told him, ‘I know who’s sending you down here, it’s that damned barber.’” But by then Darrell had a trunkful of shotgun shells, all acquired at a discount.

Winn's ad from 1971

Two other of Winn’s peccadilloes stand out among the folks who remember him or anybody who ever saw him or anybody who ever tried to shop with him.

One was his coffee habit. The other was his ubiquitous transistor radio, in an era when transistor radios were rare.

Many people talk about how he would walk up and down Market and Broad carrying his transistor radio. Darrell says, “I passed him one day and the ball game was on his radio. I asked him ‘What’s the score, Winn?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I just carry it for the noise.’”

His other quirk was his coffee. This was in the day before office coffeemakers so Winn would trudge down the street to Bob Harkleroad’s restaurant, the Smoke House, to get his coffee and then trudge back to his store. “He had a tin cup he’d carry to get it,” says Darrell. “One day he was coming back holding that cup out and this woman goes past and drops a nickel in his cup. She thought he was a beggar! He pitched his coffee and just started cussing!”

Another unsatisfied Winn's customer - 1973

But there was more to Winn than his gruff exterior. Troy Brown at Wallace News says, “He was actually a good fellow. He came in here all the time to get a sandwich. I know he was ornery. You just had to fire it right back at him.”

Bill Green at Jan-Mar agrees. “He was a good fellow. He may have run off a lot of little boys over the years but he took care of his customers. He was a sharp businessman. He knew he was running off people who weren’t going to buy anything anyway.”

Mike Milhorn says he finally solved Winn. “He had stuff I was interested in so I kept going in. I’d take my money out of my pocket and hold it in my hand so he could see it. Once I started going in with money in my hand, he wouldn’t run me out. I’d actually buy stuff.”

Winn's sideline 

More on Winn: Bill Green at the Jan Mar told me that Winn loved to play poker. In fact it was this love of poker that killed him, indirectly. Bill said Doc - a lot of people called him Doc, according to Bill - would ride the bus back to Kingsport after he retired to Harlan, Kentucky. At the time it was about a two hour ride. He said Winn got off the bus one morning and was crossing Stone Drive to the Eagle’s Club, where Winn played poker every Wednesday, when he was hit by a car. The collision didn’t kill him but it broke his hip and he eventually died of pneumonia.

Bill couldn’t remember when Winn died but thought he was about ninety.

I checked the Social Security Death Index but I never could figure out which David Silber was our Winn.

I tried all sorts of combinations - Kentucky as his last residence, Tennessee as his last residence, Kentucky as the state of issue for his Social Security card - and got no match.

If I use a simple search for David Silber, I get eight matches.

The closest match is a David Silber who was born June 28, 1903, got his Social Security card in West Virginia and died August 5, 1989 in Garner, North Carolina. Garner is near Raleigh. Perhaps he had a relative there.

Winn's closes in 1974

A couple of days ago I found in a 1925 edition of the Harrisburg, Pa. newspaper a “David Silber” listed as passing the state exam to be an assistant pharmacist.

Winn's first ad in 1954