The Dorrier Building, located at 280 Valley Street, was built in 1912 by William Dorrier as a general merchandise and feed-grain store. William’s son, Charles Richard Dorrier (1885-1966), operated this store for fifty years under the name, C.R. Dorrier and Company. The second floor of the building was used as a storage area and apartments.
Shown below is a circa 1929 postcard that shows the C.R. Dorrier store at photo left with a view of Scottsville looking north up Valley Street:
Former Scottsville Mayor, Raymon Thacker, fondly remembers a day in his youth circa 1920 when C.R. Dorrier asked him for some help. “Raymon, if you tell a bunch of people to come down here to the store about 3 o’clock, we’ll entertain them with something entirely new.” He wouldn’t say what was going to happen, but Raymon went out and passed this news to every person on Valley Street that he could find.
About 3 pm, the store held 20-30 people, and Mr. Dorrier set out a little box just full of glass bulbs. He stretched a wire out of the box and pulled it out all over the store. Then Mr. Dorrier hooked the box up to electric current and began fiddling with its little dials.
Raymon vividly describes what happened next. “First thing you know, here comes some voices…and we stood there, and we looked and looked and waited. Our eyes got bigger and bigger as the voices became clearer. Finally Mr. Dorrier had the box tuned just right, and low-and-behold we were listening to New York City! They were talking about a World Series game that was going on. It was a MIRACLE that you could hear people talking from New York City clear into Scottsville. Nobody could understand it!
In 2010, the Dorrier building hosted Country Blessings, a grocery and delicatessen. As of this writing in 2026, it is home to Tavern on the James.
Copyright © 2018 by Scottsville Museum
Top Image Located On: Capturing Our Heritage, CDCG08
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Bottom Image Located On: Capturing Our Heritage, CDB16
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https://eyeinhand.com/2025/04/03/edith-taggart-scottsville-central/
For many years, a resident on the second floor was Edith Taggart. Edith was the sole telephone switchboard operator for Scottsville from 1911 to 1950. Known to many simply as “Central” for her familiar voice on the line, “Hello, Central.” Despite a bout with polio at age eight that left her crippled, she survived, and stayed on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for thirty-nine years.
She was far more than a switchboard operator: she tracked doctors on house calls, knew where every farmer and tradesman was working, and during WWII could connect callers to soldiers overseas with just a name and a state. People called her just to hear a familiar voice, and her sharp wit was legendary — when a drunk caller demanded she connect him to Heaven to speak with Jesus, she replied, “Luther Baber, if you don’t get off that phone, I’m going to give you Hell!”
When dial phones arrived in the early 1950s, Edith was left jobless and homeless. Her employer’s offer of a replacement job, which would require climbing 14 stairs, was cruelly impractical for a wheelchair user. Her friend Virginia Lumpkin stepped in, giving Edith free rent and meals across the street at the Traveler’s Rest Hotel for the next 18 years.
In retirement, Edith took up making hand-stitched sock monkeys that eventually sold in novelty stores in New York and Washington. She died in 1968, beloved by a town she had carried in her mind and in her heart for nearly four decades.
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Prior to the Dorrier Building, an earlier structure stood on this site. It can be seen on the left in this panorama, taken in 1908 by local photographer William Burgess during the Reunion of Confederate Veterans. The photo was shot from the intersection of Valley and Main, looking up West Main Street.
