Vena Newsome stands on the front steps of the old store building that was formerly owned by her grandfather, J.T. Miles.

Remembering the Cherry Lane store

In 1929, just months before the Great Depression gripped the country, John Tompkins “J.T.” Miles, opted to become a business owner, buying out his employer, Alex Woodruff, and opening a joint post office-general store. The store withstood the era, finally closing in the 1960s. The original and subsequent structures are still standing today, although the original building is now vacant. One part of the structure is now being used as an auction business, Crouse Auctions, operated by Clarence Roby Crouse.

Born a few years after the store’s purchase, Miles’ granddaughter, Vena Newsome, noted her memories of the post office and store.

“Close to Stone Mountain, on what was Old (U.S.) 21, my great-great aunt, Myrtle Miles, had the post office in her house in the 1930s and ‘40s,” she said. “Walter Crouse road a horse out here twice a week by Camp Cheerio and go down the mountain, by Miles Post Office and deliver her mail and pick it up. Grandpa would wait for him at the store because he’d get back late.”

After her grandfather retired in 1945, the post office was run by Lula Norman.

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