Nick Rillakis

Nov. 12, 2019

The McCleary HealthMart Pharmacy currently has a portrait of Nick Rillakis on display.

Rillakis had a store called Rhodes Grocery which basically stood on the very spot his portrait is on display. It was built in the 1920s and heralded as the first concrete structure in town. In the final years of this building it was festooned with murals by James Abbott and served as a storage unit place as it fell into increasing neglect and disrepair. In the 1980s-1990s Abbott's work was all over the place but is now more difficult to locate.

Anyway Nick was part of the Greek wave of workers who came to McCleary when old Henry lured foreign workers here who were not likely to unionize and would be prone to demand to be treated like human beings instead of the slaves they became. Unlike the Italians who came here, the Greeks were economically better off from their point of origin. Those who were not killed in the woods or died from other causes and landed in the McCleary Cemetery just made their wad of dough and went back home. But a few Greeks hung around and the last ones survived into the 1970s.

Some of the Greeks ran a gambling house and bordello in the building that later served as The Pines restaurant and tavern. The Greeks also hosted some of the earliest meetings for the workers to unionize there. The space is now the big empty lot on Main and Maple.

I recall Nick as a rotund, bald, gregarious and bombastic fellow. The most notable part of his store was an old timey giant wheel of cheese close to the entrance where customers could select the size of their slice. Going into his store was sort of like making a trip back in time. But that describes a lot of McCleary in the 1960s.

Path through the Pines

Aug. 7, 2018.

This path on the SW corner of Maple and Main goes through the Pines. But where are trees, you might ask.

The Pines was a name applied by Cal Clark in the 1950s to the final incarnation of one of the old-time two-story false buildings in downtown McCleary until it was closed by the IRS who padlocked the doors and then later burned (allegedly by kids playing with matches) after being abandoned for a few years in the 1980s.

On this lot at different times in history was a gathering spot for the local Greeks, it was also a house of prostitution upstairs, a topless bar in the 1960s, a family restaurant, a meeting spot for labor agitators in the 1920s-1930s, and a card room where Cecil "Primo" Boling was the dealer with his giant hands.

I recall watching the high flames shoot up from the roof which pretty much gutted the place. The burned out derelict remained standing for far too long as a wrecked reminder of McCleary's colorful past.

The former Timbear Cafe stands across Maple St.

Greek section

McCleary Cemetery, July 12, 2016

George Itsos (1886-1940), Christ Pappas (1882-1956), Savvas Karaynnis (1873-1923), George Iliades (d. 1919), Peter Cholos (1873-1917), Demetrios Stamatoy "Yakima" Eanis (1881-1963), Anton Stergon (1882-1915) and three unmarked.

Christ Pappas 1882-1956

"Born in Samos, Greece."

Henry McCleary, who ran this company town, "wished not to tolerate unions" and hired many workers from Italy and Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean in the early part of the 20th century as they were not likely to organize as laborers at that point in history.

Many of the Italians, who mostly arrived from the northern part of Italy, remained in McCleary. Angelo Pellegrini, perhaps McCleary's most famous historical resident, landed in McCleary as a boy in 1913. The neighborhood blocks around First and Mommsen (where the Pellegrinis lived) was known as "Little Italy."

Many of the Greeks who worked here did not settle in McCleary, although a few remained such as grocery store owner Nick Rillakis. The McCleary Cemetery has a small Greek section and a few of the headstones are carved in the Greek alphabet.

May 25, 2012