Mount Airy, NC: The Origins of Mayberry
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| Wally's Service Station, where Gomer Pyle used to work. |
When he conceived his famous Sheriff Andy Taylor character and the fictional town of Mayberry, he borrowed the names of businesses and people he actually grew up with in Mount Airy. Snappy Lunch and Floyd's Barber Shop are real businesses that existed when Griffith grew up there, and still operate today. In the show, the big city of "Mount Pilot" was derived from the actual Pilot Mountain nearby. Some of the characters in the show were named after students he grew up with and taught as a school teacher.
Aside from that, that's about all there is to Mount Airy's connection to Mayberry. Over the decades, as the Andy Griffith Show rose into the realm of cult classic, the town of Mount Airy slowly rebuilt itself into the fictional Mayberry to capitalize on Griffith's success.
Today, there's a Bluebird Cafe, where Deputy Fife preferred to eat. Wally's Service Station, where Gomer Pyle used to work, used to operate as a Gulf Station when Griffith grew up there, but recently took on the television show identity to capture more tourist dollars.
Sash and I didn't want to eat at Bluebird Cafe. We really wanted to go to Snappy Lunch, but it was closed. Apparently, they run out of food quick. So we walked into Leon's Burger Express, thinking this place was named for the toddler cowboy played by Clint Howard who often wandered around Mayberry. But according to owner Paul Riekehof, his burger shop was named for someone else.
"Andy Griffith was only born here, that's about the only connection to the TV show there is, aside from a few other businesses", Riekehof explained to us. Riekehof had lived in Mount Airy for some 25 years and saw a lot of changes. "Since he (Griffith) left town, he hasn't really been back."
But considering how typecast Griffith had become, I figure he wanted to distance himself from the town that adopted his image and never let him forget.
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Previous to our visit to Mount Airy, Sash and I had left Jack's house earlier that morning in Hays, NC, and traveled north towards a destination in Martinsville, VA. Waiting for us at Martinsville the next day was a group of folks at Monogram Food Solutions, one of the leading manufacturers of beef jerky, meat sticks, and other meat-based foods.
More about them in our next article.
But otherwise, the route into Martinsville took us along some rural roads, through some country far removed from bigger cities, very much like what Mayberry might have looked like. Sash almost got knocked over by a logging truck.
But we managed to get through it all under good weather, before the rains came the next day.
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| Highway riding along Highway 268, east of Hays, NC |
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| Sash rides her Ninja 500R through Mount Airy, NC |
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| Highway stands next to Floyd's Barber Shop |
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| Sash stands next to Snappy Lunch |
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| Sash chatting with other customers inside Leon's Burger Express. Owner Paul Riekehof in white. |
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| Our bikes parked on Pine St, downtown Mount Airy, NC |
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| Highway stands next to a wooden bear in Mount Airy |
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| Sash knows what boys like |
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| On Virginia's state line along Highway 103, this is the only "welcome" sign they give you. |
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| Sash is getting better at handling curves. |
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| Highway 661 in Virginia |
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| Highway 661 in Virginia |
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| Sash is one of the few biker chicks I know who will voluntarily pee on the side of the road. |
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| And this is the photo that Sash took as she was peeing on the side of the road. |
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| Sash on Highway 661 in Virginia |
It's a beautiful area up there. You should ride the Highway 58, Jeb Stuart Highway, over to Damascus Virginia, then stay at the Bear Claw Holler motorcycle campground. You won't have to worry about breakfast or dinner and the plus is you can Meet the Reagans. Had you been a couple weeks earlier we might have met.
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