Best Friends and The Dog Wagon


Well, to start the new year, I have been thinking of best friends. We have been blessed with many friends, but the "Best" designation goes to Judy and Dan Schuda. Dan and I arrived at Glenville State College in the fall of 1964. We became roommates in Louis Bennett Hall. My good wife and Judy were also roommates at Glenville State. You guessed it! We both married and have been special friends since then.

Let me share a story that Dan tells of his Granddad Litton.

Dan was raised in Charleston, WV, and his Granddad Litton is a legend in the city. Granddad Litton began an eatery in Charleston in the early 1900's. It started out in 1910 as the Palace Cafe. But no one ever called it that - it was always called The Dog Wagon!

The Dog Wagon was a Charleston landmark for years, serving its famous hamburgers from the 12-stool restaurant. Brothers Clint and Levi Litton paid $1,200 to build a tiny oak restaurant on wheels. Doctors, lawyers, mayors and governors all dined at the Dog Wagon, which was open 24 hours. In the 1920s, the Gazette carried a Sunday cartoon titled "Dog Wagon Stuff" featuring the regulars at the eatery. Occasionally, the cartoon would mention a make-believe reunion. So in 1931, the Littons put on a real one. More than 30,000 people showed up, making it the largest event in city history at the time.

Here, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story. The article below was from The Charleston Gazette, Saturday, June 16, 1999[Charleston WV].

The Dog Wagon

The original 12-stool Dog Wagon is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the builder and the efficiency of the owners. The original sign beckoned Charlestonians from all walks of life.

Charleston's most famous restaurant started on Summers Street, on a lot a few doors from Virginia Street. Then they rolled it to post office square, behind Woolworth's and the old Charleston National Bank, which stood where McDonald's is today. Next, it moved to the corner of Summers and Quarrier, to a spot later occupied by the Fan Club. Finally, it settled in the Arcade.

The original Dog Wagon wasn't much more that that - an orange wagon, 15 feet by 20 feet, a beached version of the Toonerville trolly. Behind red and blue stained glass windows depicting morning, noon and night, 12 stools stayed occupied morning, noon and night. The Dog Wagon never closed.

Probably nobody knows more about the old Dog Wagon than Frank Litton Sr. Clint Litton was his dad, a Ripley farm boy with a sixth-grade education and a mathematical mind as sharp as the knives he used to slice bread.

Clint Litton came to Charleston at 18 and got a job at a diner on Lee Street. Four years later, he opened the Dog Wagon with his brother, Levi.

Little Frank Litton worked there with his younger brother when they were barely big enough to reach the refrigerator handle. "We were tall enough to pour coffee," Litton said. "And we could get milk out of the refrigerator and wash dishes. When the dishwasher didn't show up, it would take two of us to fill his shoes."

A small world

The restaurant was so tiny the Purity Bakery Co. had to bake bread especially for the Littons in loaves small enough to fit the odd-sized drawers.

"Bread wasn't sliced then," Litton said. "They had a real sharp knife and sliced that bread ad buttered it. They cut the bread catty-cornered and set it on a plate with the burger on the side."

The Littons cooked on hot plates and a griddle. The fabled burgers sizzled in a skillet used only for frying burgers. They cleaned the skillet by filling it with hot water, boiling the water and wiping the skillet with the heel from a loaf of bread.

"They did that so they wouldn't distort the flavor left in the skillet," Litton said.

The Dog Wagon rolled through 125 pounds of personally ground pure beef a day, none of it ever more than 2 days old.

Lots of people ordered their burgers with baked beans. Individual tins of baked beans sat on a shelf above the hot plates.



"When they got ready to wash dishes, they pulled out a folding camp stool and slid it up to a tiny sink under the counter and put the clean dishes on that."

They stored the waiter's tray over the refrigerator, on top of a holder for wrapping paper. The Dog Wagon used a lot of wrapping paper.

"People from the hotel would send bellboys over to pick up hamburgers," Litton said. "So they had a kind of carry-out."

In fact, the Dog Wagon may have been Charleston's original fast food restaurant. "Until late afternoon, there were always 10 or 12 people waiting in line for stools," Litton said. "I'd time them, and in 20 minutes, they could leave. So it was a pretty fast deal."

Feeding the multitudes

By the 1920s, Dog Wagon goings-on had inspired a Sunday newspaper cartoon, Dog Wagon Stuff, featuring wisecracking regulars drawn by Gazette cartoonist Kendall Vintroux. In 1931, the Littons decided to make the make believe reunion depicted in the cartoons a reality.

The Dog Wagon Customers Reunion was amazing. It was a sight to see more than 4,000 cars parked in a double line on the grounds of Pine Manor Country Club in Ruffner Hollow, spilling over into the fields of an adjoining farm, parking in a double line for a mile up Ruffner Hollow, and stretching down along Piedmont Road, McClung Street, Greenbrier Street and Washington Street. Thousands abandoned their cars and traipsed over the hill and through forest paths to reach the picnic site.

Using a technique borrowed from the Apache Indians, an old-time cowboy cook from Huntington roasted a giant steer chosen personally by former Gov. Howard M. Gore. The Corey Brothers hauled in 200 iced watermelons and went back for more. Speeches, games and dancing kept the lively event going until midnight. Everyone talked about having another picnic the following year. It never happened again.

Several days later, Vintroux drew a full-page cartoon depicting the event. Litton has a framed copy.

"... To governors, mayors and substantial citizens alike, the wagon has become a hallowed tradition," the story said. "Any regular Litton customer will tell you that there has been more law practiced in the Dog Wagon than any court in the country. ... Every major issue confronting the world at large has been worked out there and settled."

About 1950, the Dog Wagon settled in the Arcade. Along with hamburgers, the place had a fine reputation for pies baked with the ripest, juiciest fruit purchased from Dick and Zeke Corey's fruit market a few doors away.

Attracted to the oil and gas business during Word War II, Litton's father left the operation of the Dog Wagon to his brother. Eventually, Levi passed the torch to three employees, John Burdette, Glen Blackwell and a cousin, Arlie Litton, who had worked there since 1921.

The transaction was simple, Frank Litton said. "He gave them the money in the cash register and said, 'It's yours now.'"

"I wanted to take the place myself," Litton said, "but I was a lawyer, and my father didn't want me to get sidetracked into the restaurant business. And he said I couldn't make it without those three fellows. So I went in on it with them and stayed involved.
"I was on the bench as a municipal judge, and when court was through, I'd go and bus tables. The fellows who took it over started closing on Sunday, so I'd come over on Sunday and clean. On Saturdays, I wrote checks."

Probably because the Dog Wagon had been around so long, no one can remember precisely when it wasn't. Around 1970 or 1971, the famous restaurant finally closed.

Frank Litton doesn't know what happened to the original wagon on wheels. Last he heard, somebody from St. Albans bought it and took it to the bottomland below the Baptist church.

"I could kick myself for not putting it under a shed somewhere. It was one of a kind, especially build for them."