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Greenville was a Cow
Town… and people had fun!
An exclusive interview with Don Wright
By Bob Robinson
“This was a wonderful place back then,” he said. “It had the greatest
bunch of old men you could have found anywhere.”
Don Wright smiled as he thought back to April 24, 1954, the day he
arrived in town.
“I came here with $1,500 in my pocket and took over a closed gas
station that nobody else was dumb enough to want.”
The gas station was at the corner of South Broadway, Martin and
Washington Streets, where Annie Oakley Park now sits.
That started nearly 60 years of hard work, business growth, building
friendships and respect, some wild adventures… and making a few
enemies. He fully admits that he’s been a guest of the county “once or
twice.”
“Hey, I did it. They got me. Good job,” Wright said at one point.
You could say that Don Wright is an enigma with many facets. Who is he
really? Depends on who’s doing the talking.
To some he’s a royal pain. He has his opinions and isn’t afraid to
voice them. To others he’s probably the most honest and upright man
they’ve ever met. If he says he has your back you can take it to the
bank.
But according to almost everyone who had a few words to say about Mr.
Don Wright, don’t cross him.
“You don’t agree with him? That’s fine. He accepts that,” they say.
“Just don’t tell him something you think he wants to hear and then do
something else… and don’t lie to him.
“Not a good thing.”
Others just wish he would go away. Most recently that might be the
Darke County Commissioners. A new courthouse addition was announced
several years ago, which put Wright on the warpath. Commissioners have
long-since scrapped the idea because of the economy.
Wright believes that as soon as they can figure out how to get the
money together, it will be back on the table… “And we don’t need it!”
However, you can read about that in the Letters to the Editor on County
News Online. Wright was more interested in talking about “the way it
was.”
“This was a Cow Town,” he said. “Bars, fist fights, you name it. We had
kids come over from Indiana… you could drink at 18 here. In Indiana it
was 21. Bars were making a lot of money.
“That was good for business,” he said.
He remembered one night when a bunch of Indiana kids started beating up
on a cop. Greenville kids jumped in and put a stop to it.
“Not our cops, you don’t,” Wright said. “They might have considered
beating up a cop themselves, but they weren’t going to let a bunch of
Indiana kids do it.”
He recalled the three “men with suits” who were standing around the
closed gas station where he got his start. They were trying to figure
out what to do with it.
“I BS’d them into letting me open it with my $1,500. I figure they let
me have it until they could figure out something else to do with it. I
got my fuel on consignment… they filled the tank. I paid them when it
was sold.”
Needless to say, the “suits” never looked for another opportunity. They
knew success when they saw it. Wright had gotten his start.
His next business was Jelly’s Pool Hall. Jelly wanted to sell, but
Wright didn’t have the money. The president of the local bank co-signed
the note for him.
“He told me that he saw me at work when he arrived at the office in the
morning. He saw me at work when he left for home that night. He knew it
was a good investment. And he trusted me.”
Illegal activities? Wright grinned.
“Yeah, it was rumored that I was running illegal electronic slots in
five cities,” he said. “And a few other things. You know how rumors go.”
And that was the end of the subject. Wright said that there were three
things that were important then… and missing today.
Trust was the first.
“At one point I had the keys to 23 businesses. I’d go in and count the
money and leave them their share. People trusted you.”
Access to money.
“I got my first loan for a business venture on my signature. The
president of the bank co-signed for me. How many kids can get that
today?”
And fun!
“I couldn’t have found a town anywhere better than this place,” he
said. “That’s why I love this city so much.”
But it’s changed. According to Wright, not for the better.
“Nobody’s any fun today,” he said. “It pisses me off! Everyone takes
themselves so seriously.”
He hasn’t lost his approach to fun, however, or his sarcastic wit.
There is no event today that won’t get his scathing comments, whether
it’s his written “scalpel” about local events and people, or his
response to the current president’s “Hope & Change” campaign.
He put up a “Hope & Change” banner at the corner of Hwy 127 &
36, which the wind recently took down. He promises it will go back up
“as soon as I have the time.”
He added that there’s one area he wants to set straight.
“Contrary to popular opinion, I wouldn’t know a drug if I saw it. The
biggest problem for this country today? Drugs!”
His message to today’s young people…
“I want young people to know that if you want to be a success, go out
and find a few old men who are a success… but you got to learn how to
work first.”
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