By Sarah Stephens

Elmore Autauga News

If you are a regular visitor to Main Street in Millbrook, you have probably already heard that Big Mike’s Steak House will soon occupy a very old building, that most recently was the WELCOME Food Pantry. But there is a lot more history behind the walls that remain.

Crews started working on the building recently, taking out two walls, and are working on the building. The first mural in Millbrook is located on the south wall and will be incorporated into the restaurant. It was hoped that more of the building could be saved, but unfortunately age and damage did not make that possible. Big Mike’s owners were adamant about saving as much of the original building as possible.

There had been discussions about perhaps razing the building entirely, but now at least part of the structure will carry on for generations to come.

I want to thank Jene Vincent Gober, a wealth of information and history in our area. He shared the following concerning the location, and it may interest you. He also provided one of the photos with this article.

He wrote recently about the history of that property, saying that location was once Cooks Drug Store. Before that it was McKissick Drug Store.

“This was built about 1958. I helped to build it when I was 18. My Dad built this building for Mr. McKissick. Before this Mr. McKissick was across the road where the City Hall is now. The building the store was in belonged to Mr. James Cobb. He ran a little Grocery store there when my family moved to Millbrook, when I was six years old. When Mr. James closed the store, Mr. Argo put in a Drug store. After he had ran it for a while, Mr. McKissick bought the Drug store out. After some time, Mr. McKissick wanted to enlarge, so he bought the land across the road from Mr. Tom Osborne.”

Over time the building also served as a martial arts school.

As Millbrook is seeing phenomenal growth, it is nice to see efforts to retain as much history as possible.