It was sad to see the lights turned off in the middle of last week at Gridleys.

The once popular store closed the doors of its location on the Avenue of the Fountains last week.

At one time, it was known as “Arizona’s most unique stationery store.” Fay and Jack Gridley started the business in 1973 as McDowell Mountain Stationery and Office Supply.

Local community builders asked if they could offer blueprint services. They purchased the equipment and that service provided a good revenue producer for them for years. A secretarial service, expanded printing services and a notary service were also added.

They outgrew their original 1,000-square-foot location at the opposite end of the building where The Alamo is currently located on Saguaro Boulevard.

In 1977, they moved the business to 16830 E. Avenue of the Fountains. The location had big display windows and a sidewalk out front. But it soon became evident that carloads of visitors were coming out to see the fountain, then driving down the Avenue of the Fountains, but very few stopped.

“How could we get them to stop?” they asked themselves.

Fay called her brother-in-law, Jim Tait (not the insurance agent), who had a successful antique-import store in Michigan.

He suggested baskets and offered to order a shipment, delivered to the store.

Soon, a shipload of crates arrived. In order to check them in and price them, they had to do it on the sidewalk in front of the store.

Cars literally did U-turns in the middle of the Avenue to see what was happening. This began the daily ritual of putting the baskets and eventually other merchandise out in the morning and taking them in at the end of the day.

The Taits ended up moving to Fountain Hills. Jim closed his antique store in Michigan. He brought his antiques, folk art, collection of Native American baskets and jewelry into the shop.

Suddenly, McDowell Mountain Stationery and Office Supplies became the "West’s most unique stationery store.”

Jack, with a lifelong interest in rocks and lapidary, decided to add his collection to the store’s eclectic mix of gifts.

McDowell Mountain Stationery and Office Supplies no longer seemed to fit a business with such diversity. So they decided they needed to change the name. They didn't know what they could call the business with the company's products and services ranging from blueprinting to rocks.

They observed most people called the business, “Gridleys,” so that’s what they decided to call it.

Time was taking its toll on the printing business with rapid changes in technology. Small inexpensive copy machines, fax machines and computers reduced the need to run flyers or church bulletins at the print shop, so they decided to close out the printing business.

Jack and Fay had to replace the income generated by the print department. Their daughter, Gail, who was publishing a very successful landscape magazine, joined the business and suggested they add a framing department which would complement the store’s art department and gift lines.

There are many other memories about Gridleys.

Before there was a Town Hall, before there was incorporation and before there was a chamber office or building, the “back room” at Gridleys is where a number of major decisions were reached that affected life in our unincorporated community.

You never knew who you would see there. Some of our early town leaders were Fay, who was usually in the middle of any important discussion; Glenn Atchinson, founder of the Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church; Ed Mast, founder of the Fountain Hills United Bretheren in Christ Church; Harlan and Ruth Collins, retired attorneys from Ohio; Chuck Uhlig, local Valley National Bank manager; Margaret and Tom Jeffreys, she was the first chairperson of the Committee of Architecture and he was the first Chamber Manager; Clarence Lund, a retired advertising executive from Chicago; Idar Rimestad a former U.S. ambassador; and Dr. Brewster Snow, a retired university educator.

The Gridleys also published the first telephone book in the community. It was called the Fountain Connection. They partnered with Larry Ryerson on the publication. They called their company the Ryley Press. Ryerson joked that he wanted to call the phone book, the “Ryley Dialy.”

A lot more than just another storefront went away with the closing of Gridleys. It was the end of an era in our town’s history.