Anyone driving down Main Street recently couldn't help but notice rubble where a piece of Harlan County history once stood.

Lee Furniture, which was originally named Lee & Roberts Good & Bad Furniture when it opened in 1950, moved earlier this year from downtown Harlan to Woodland Plaza to make room for the city's new convention center.

Mildred Lee Crider, 85, is the founder of the store that has served area residents for 53 years. Crider said many fond memories are associated with the business.

"My grandchildren and great-grandchildren all grew up in that store," she said. "That store was home to them."

Crider said many of her customers have handed down the tradition of shopping for furniture at the store.

"I've had many people come in and say they bought their first set of furniture from me," she said. "I've had families to shop here up through four generations now."

The history of the store begins when Crider and her friend Virgie Roberts started a business in an empty house in Baxter.

"We decided we wanted to go into the furniture business, so we went to Cincinnati and bought a load of used furniture," she said. "The furniture we bought was from estates that were being sold."

In order to get business, Crider tried two techniques.

"We called up friends and we put furniture out in front of the house where people could see it," she said. "We did pretty well, and two years later I found a building by the Baxter bridge, and I went into business there for the next 21 years."

Crider, who came to Harlan County in 1947 with her husband, Grady Lee, and their children, Grady Jr. and Helen, said she and Virgie ended their business partnership but always remained friends.

"She ended up starting Roberts Furniture, and I started Lee Furniture," she added.

The furniture store at Baxter was marked by some "really good years." With business in full swing, Crider quit buying furniture in Cincinnati and began to purchase new pieces from salesmen traveling through the area. After the death of her husband, Crider decided to buy the Bowers Building on the corner of Clover and Main streets in downtown Harlan.

"The Bowers Building had burned down and there was only two brick walls remaining," she said. "There were trees growing inside the lot, and people thought I was very brave because the building there had been an eyesore for many years."

After his father's death, Grady and his wife Martha moved to Harlan after receiving their degrees from the University of Kentucky in order to help run the family business. Crider remarried a few years later to Stanley Crider, and began what would be 30 years at the site in downtown Harlan.

Grady Lee said his mother used to sell furniture to newlyweds on what was called the "honeymoon special."

"We would sell an entire house full of furniture for $1,200. That really says something about inflation," he said.

He also said the recent move was unsettling for the family.

"It was disturbing to our children and grandchildren," Grady said. "They said,