It stood about where Downey Community Hospital is located today. Old-time Downey residents will tell you it was the best place to get a cheap meal in the 1930s. And you could also get all the home brew you cared to drink.
John Sims, dentist and lifelong Downey resident, recalls he mowed lawns and delivered magazines door-to-door for pocket money in those long-ago days. "A nickel was dear!" said Sims.
The magazines he delivered to earn those nickels that stretched so far in Mexican Town, may still ring familiar to some ears. Liberty, Good Housekeeping and The Saturday Evening Post were among them.
This column is too brief to try and define the Great Depression, and that has already been done thoroughly by such writers as John Steinbeck in his "Grapes of Wrath," Nelson Algren in his "Neon Wilderness," and a long list of learned historians.
This is a column about Downey, which was still something of a small town in the 1930s, and how it survived the greatest economic slump in U.S. history.
Thee were two major businesses in Downey during most of those grim depression years: The packing house just off Downey Avenue near the railroad tracks, and the asbestos company. Most of the rest of the town still relied on agriculture.
There were the roots of an aviation industry that would blossom to major proportions in World War II. But these were still small companies struggling for survival in the depression years.
Then there was the Work Project Administration, or WPA, established by President Franklin Roosevelt to get Americans back to work again.
Some loathed and hated it. Some thanked the Lord for a chance to work again. The WPA built the old Downey elementary school located on Third Street between Brookshire and Dolan avenues. The plaque proclaiming the old school a WPA project is on display at the Downey Historical Society today. Many structures including the local bridges, were built by the WPA.
A clipping from the old Live Wire newspaper dated Nov. 27, 1039, offers keen insight into the Downey of that time. It reads, "a committee was named at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce...to make a survey of the local district for the purpose of learning how many families live here who may be in need of assistance from outside sources.
"Individuals knowing of any families here, especially those in which there are little children, who by reason of unemployment are destitute, are requested to file such information at the office of the Chamber of Commerce, 232 North Crawford St."
World War II brought the country together and snapped it out of the economic disaster that was the depression. But many of the lessons learned from that time lived on in those who lived through it.
The Live Wire news clipping added, "An effort will be made to secure employment by those in need, to give aid where necessary and provide Christmas dinner for families in such need."
Downey is still a community where neighbors help each other. Many families learned to help each other during the grim years of the 1930s. And they’re still doing it.