Truckin' on the Western Branch

Flo Wolin Florence Wolin, a retired teacher who lives in Hatton Point, was known as Flossie Bishop when she graduated, salutatorian, from Churchland High in 1962. She worked at the Churchland Pharmacy while she was in school and remembered one day when her uncle, who invested in various developments and real estate ventures, walked into the pharmacy with several of his developer friends.

“That soda fountain was the only place to eat lunch in Churchland at that time, so we had lots of lunch customers,” she said, “He told me that they were naming streets in the new Hatton Point development—little did I know I would live there one day.”

Image by Sheally

Navy doctor Ben Berliner walking along Glen Cove Road toward Shoreline Drive in Hatton Point. Flo Wolin and Mason at the same corner five decades later.

Mary Jo Watkins Mary Jo Watkins grew up a few doors from where she lives now on Hatton Point Road. We moved from Airline Boulevard to Hatton Point in Churchland in 1948 when I was about 10 years old and it was still country. It was all wooded around the house—we were the first house here. My dad told me that if he had had the money, he could have bought from Cedar Lane all the way back to the river for $25,000. The Suburban Country Club then was a long, red, brick building, sprawling along the riverfront, with a circular drive, huge trees, a ballroom, and a swimming pool, but no golf course. I remember Daddy telling me about an amusement park down on Wise Beach.

Suburban Country Club

Mary Jo Watkins. Image by Sheally

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