Main Street resting place has seen four decades of Highlands history
The Loafer’s Bench is as enduring a landmark in Highlands as Sunset Rock, and will probably be a fixture along Main Street for as long as the mountain overlooking town.
“Until the Apocalypse,” said Jim-Bud Rogers, who helped build it.
How the bench came to be is a story of self-defiance between Stone Lantern owner Ralph deVille and the Town of Highlands back in the 1970s. It is a story that blends into the rich tapestry of the town’s colorful legends.
The more time passes, the better the story gets.
A bench of some sort has always occupied the spot along the sidewalk along Main Street about 30-feet up from North Fourth Street, even before Stone Lantern started business near the corner of Main Street and North Fourth Street.
“Since forever,” said Katrina Laverty. “They were called the Husband’s Bench back in the 1930s. That’s where husbands sat and talked, and smoked their cigars and pipes while their wives shopped. There has always been a bench out there since I can remember. Either the metal benches with the wooden seats or the Loafer’s Bench.”
Stone Lantern was opened in 1960 by Ralph deVille. After spending years in Japan and developing a passion for oriental art and antiques deVille opened his dream business in Highlands. deVille passed away in 2015 and his family took over the running of the store.
This is how Rogers and longtime friend Mike Thompson tell the story. According to Rogers, he and Thompson helped build the Loafer’s Bench back sometime during 1974 or 75.
“Back when I was young it was kind of a meeting place for young people,” Thompson said. “We’d sit and talk, and kind of cuss and discuss things. During the summer there’d be a regular crowd of people that would come there.”
Rogers said before the Loafer’s Bench was built, the area of sidewalk was located on the hottest corner in town, across the street from the gas station and next door to the soda shop and barber shop.
“This was a different kind of Highlands back then,” Rogers said. “There was no traffic on Main Street, especially during fall and winter. There was no parking spaces in the center, just this wide avenue that was our playground.”
Rogers said Main Street in Highlands during the 1970s consisted of a few shops, the Galax Theater, the gas station and soda shop.
Rogers said about 10-12 teenagers would hang out at that spot along the sidewalk where the Town of Highlands had placed a couple park benches there.
“They’d been there for years,” he said. “Well, one day, the Chief of Police back then didn’t like the crowd of us kids hanging out there until all hours of the night and he had the benches removed.”
That’s when Ralph deVille decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Ralph notified the Town that he intended to build his own bench on his private property and that’s how this Loafer’s Bench came to be,” Rogers said. “So, Edgar McCall, some Stone Lantern staff and Mike Thompson built the bench. Ralph cut into his hillside at the sidewalk, his private property and built a bench.”
The bench recesses into the hillside and ends at public property at the sidewalk, Rogers said.
“The original bench was built out of concrete cinderblocks and then I added the wooden benching on top of the cinderblocks and the back rest later,” he said.
Rogers said he replaces the wood every now and then whenever it needs replacing.
“There is an inscription hidden underneath the wood on the cinderblocks at the north corner of the bench that says, the Loafer’s Bench was built by Edgar McCall, Stone Lantern staff and Mike Thompson,” he said.
There is also a plaque centered on the bench, honoring longtime Highlands resident and antique car aficionado, Alan Lewis, who died at the age of 86 in 2016.
“Alan Lewis liked to bring his antique Model A’s and T’s up here all the time, park the cars and just pass the time of day sitting on Loafer’s Bench,” Rogers said. “He died of a heart attack two-or-three years ago. One Saturday he was out there sitting on that bench and that night he died.”
While Ralph deVille and Stone Lantern have passed on into history, the Loafer’s Bench continues to be used by Highlands residents, summer people and tourists every day, Rogers said.
“Every day there’s someone sitting on that bench at some time or another,” Rogers said. “All the time.”