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WEST POINT — Richard McCoy talked about his long career with the City of West Point at Thursday’s noon hour meeting of the West Point Rotary Club, held at Johnny’s Pizza in the downtown area. McCoy retired recently following a career that involved him as city clerk, treasurer and inspector. He was with the city for the better part of four decades and saw both highs and lows. There was a boom period in the 1980s when West Point was the home to the corporate office of WestPoint Pepperell and downtown was a very busy place. Then came the Farley disaster with lots of corporate downsizing, job losses and once-active downtown businesses closing. It meant for some hard times, but West Point has experienced a rebirth with Kia and its suppliers, Point University and a lively downtown district.

The duties McCoy handled over the years included overseeing city elections and dispersing city funds,.

He took a lighthearted jab at Rotary Club member Dr. Joe Downs, a long-time member of the city council. “Joe always kidded me about knowing where the bodies were buried,” he said. “That’s literally true. The city clerk knows where all grave sites are in the city cemeteries.”

The city clerk’s office is the gateway to a city. Every new resident has to come to city hall to get needed services turned on. Each city clerk in Georgia receives specialized training from the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and the Carl Vinson Institute.

In the heyday of the 1980s, West Point was home to such businesses as the Men’s Toggery Shop, Darden Brothers Shoes, Hengstler’s Jewelry, City Drug, Kessler’s, Cato’s, Fred’s, the Slack Shack, Nader’s and many more.

“Where Coach’s is now, there was a record store known as the Sound Express,” McCoy said. “Penny Lee worked there then.”

She became better known later for being with M.W. Lee Mortuary.

In the 1980s, WestPoint Pepperell and Interface with the top utility users in the city. The biggest user now is a crypto currency company known as Easy Block.

Growth areas of the city include the Harris Creek subdivision and Point University. The Love’s Travel Plaza is the largest revenue generator.

In the 1980s, all city functions ran from the municipal complex near the river. The police and fire departments were there, along with city hall and the courts. The fire department is now on Kia Parkway and the police department and courts are a couple of blocks away on West 9th Street near the CSX main line. The utility department was just south of the municipal complex. It has since moved north along Highway 29 to the former Georgia-Alabama Supply building. McCoy has a personal connection to that big building.

“My wife’s grandfather worked there,” he said. “He had a lot of good memories from being there.”

Since the Kia announcement in 2006, West Point has benefitted from a $20 million investment in water and sewer system improvements. A natural gas line replacement project is now under way.

The gas system upgrade is an important step to take for the city. In the recent past, the city had a gas line rupture near the Coca-Cola plant. Repairing that break wiped out all the profits that had been made on gas sales that year. It underscored the need for improvements.

Prior to Kia’s coming, the city went through two $500,000 downtown improvements with streetscape projects. “We had to pay for them upfront to receive reimbursements on the other end,” McCoy said.

He credited then-Mayor Billy Head for his leadership during that period.

There has been some phenomenal growth in the city’s budget since the 1980s. The city was bringing in around $500,000 a year and the millage rate was around 10.5. Taxes were being assessed at the 40 percent rate.

“Our millage rate has steadily declined,” McCoy said. “It’s now around 6. West Point collects around $4 million a year now.”

McCoy said he would not forget the one year the city did not roll back the rate. “We got a lot of complaints about that,” he said. “It was a good thing, though, If we didn’t do it that one year we may have run out of reserves.”

The continual training and education city clerks receive is a good thing in McCoy’s view. “A lot of this is done on the weekends,” he said. “It’s important to have these learning sessions. You can bring back ideas you can use that will help the city. The training sessions are an opportunity to share ideas, gain knowledge and build relationships with people from other towns in Georgia. You have to have relationships with others that are based on mutual respect to accomplish anything and to do what’s best for West Point. I like to tell everyone that West Point is the busiest little city in the state.”

The West Point of the 1980s and the West Point of today have one thing in common – it was hard to find a parking space in the downtown area back then and it’s hard to find one today. It was a different story in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Club member Greg Duffey said that when he was growing up in Shawmut in the 1960s his parents worked in the local mills and Thursday was pay day. “Everyone in the Valley went to West Point that day,” he said. “That’s where most of the stores were. I can remember going to the Big Bear grocery store on the east bank for a promotion they had. The tallest man in the world at that time was there that day. He was over eight feet tall. He rode here from Atlanta in a T bird. His legs were so long he had to sit in a special seat from the back of the car.”

The man who was there that day was Henry Hite (1915-1978). He claimed to be eight-foot-two inches tall but was actually around seven-foot-seven. He was called the Corn King Giant for his promotional appearances for Corn King products. He made a living as an actor, stage performer and media personality. Next Thursday, May 1st, will be the 110th anniversary of the day he was born. Henry Marion Mullens was his birth name.