H.G. Hill Co. Ledgers, 1921-1950.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Arranged chronologically.

Materials housed in the Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: 1922 Appraisal, plus account ledgers for 1921-1932 and 1946-1950 for H.G. Hill Company of Nashville, Tenn., a prominent local chain grocery. The appraisal includes plans of building footprints for numerous stores and facilities throughout the chain. The earliest ledger includes information concerning warehouse, sales, coupons, license fees, as well as what appear to be charitable contributions to organizations such as the Old Ladies' Home and the Humane Society. Other ledger books have more details and specifics and are mostly accounts with suppliers.

Cite as: H.G. Hill Co. Ledgers, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library.

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code).

Ron Perry;,Gift;,2005.,Acc. 2005.038.

Horace Greeley Hill (1873-1942) was the son, grandson, and father of grocers. His grandfather Adam Hill ran a store in Millford, Ohio at the time of the Civil War; Adam's son George Hill (H.G.'s father) moved to Tennessee about 1870 lured by ads for cheap farm land, but failing as a farmer made a go of it as a Nashville grocer. He sent his son Horace Greeley (named for the Democratic Party's 1872 Presidential candidate) to prestigious Montgomery Bell Academy. H.G. opened the first of his many grocery stores in 1895, adding his initials to the store name to distinguish it from Hills, a popular Union Street hat seller.

Hill moved operations to the Public Square where most other grocers were located and there he eventually bested his main competition, Leahy's (who moved to California) and Crone & Jackson. By 1906 Hill had the city's largest chain of grocery stores (a dozen), incorporating new trends of making cash sales (formerly only the lower class clientele at any grocery paid cash), fewer grocery deliveries, and buying copious newspaper advertising. Soon Hill had his own bakery, coffee roasting plant, offices and warehouses, and in 1907 he hired a replacement and opened five stores in St. Louis. Returning to Nashville, he went into wholesaling in 1910, and by 1913 he operated 35 retail outlets, having branched out to area towns like Franklin, Lebanon, and Columbia. He put his brothers in charge of chain stores in Birmingham and other Alabama cities, and his married sister over a New Orleans chain. Hill stores delivered no groceries after 1917, pioneering the profitable Cash & Carry concept. By the 1920s, chain grocers were flourishing in Memphis (Piggly Wiggly), Jacksonville (Winn-Dixie), Cincinnati (Kroger), and A&P (nationwide). By 1930, Hills dominance in Nashville was strong, with 102 locations in the city alone: at that time, Piggly Wiggly had just 16 Nashville stores. A&P came back to Nashville after a 20-year absence in 1937, and Kroger opened its first Nashville store in 1939.

Most of Hill's stores were small, but strategically located on busy corner lots. Hill's investment of $1,000,000 in the Nashville Trust Co. probably saved that institution in the depths of the Great Depression. Before the 1930s ended, he had largely turned the grocery business over to his only son, H.G. Hill, Jr. (1900-1993), a 1921 Vanderbilt graduate. H.G. Hill Sr. died in 1942, and in business the trend thereafter was for fewer but larger stores: by 1960, Nashville had only 25 HGH stores, less than a quarter of the peak number.

In English.

Custodial history prior to donation to the Nashville Public Library by Ron Perry is unknown.

Catalog;,2006;,Ronnie Pugh.

Rehouse;,2011;,Linda Barnickel.

No further accruals are expected.