There aren’t any businesses in Ketchuptown, not even a corner store or a Dollar General, so I knock on the house closest to the weathered, hand-painted sign that reads, “Ketchup Town.” The woman who answers the door tells me to go down the road aways to talk to Mr. Andrew Atkinson.
“How Ketchuptown got its name, well,” Atkinson says, greeting me in the front yard of his historic farm home. “It was back when they got the store built, all the farmers would go and ‘catch up’ on the news. They’d all gather up on Saturday evenings, and they’d hear the stories. They’d catch up on the weather, mostly just to keep up with what everybody was doing.”
So, it has nothing to do with tomatoes or Heinz 57?
“No, sir,” he says. “Just to catch up on the news. And Miss Ruth Hamm was the one who named it that. Ketchuptown Store was built in 1927. It’s just a community.”
“How Ketchuptown got its name, well,” Atkinson says, greeting me in the front yard of his historic farm home. “It was back when they got the store built, all the farmers would go and ‘catch up’ on the news. They’d all gather up on Saturday evenings, and they’d hear the stories. They’d catch up on the weather, mostly just to keep up with what everybody was doing.”
So, it has nothing to do with tomatoes or Heinz 57?
“No, sir,” he says. “Just to catch up on the news. And Miss Ruth Hamm was the one who named it that. Ketchuptown Store was built in 1927. It’s just a community.”
