‘I’d get a Prim fried pie on my way to school’ – WLAF’s Charlie Hutson

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is the third in a series of stories on the Prim Bakery and LUB that WLAF is featuring this week.

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – A dozen donuts for 45-cents? Yep! That was the price back in the day at Prim’s Bakery. Most Baby Boomers and those older remember the once famous La Follette landmark.

The bakery was a fitting touch to a community that once had a “Mayberry-type” atmosphere. It sat on North Tennessee Avenue, the street that handled all the north-south traffic that now uses I-75 through Campbell County.

WLAF’s Charlie Hutson would often times make a morning stop at Prim’s Bakery. “I can vividly recall getting a fried pie for fifteen cents on my way to school,” said Hutson. Here is a related story.

One of the daughters of P.J. and Dorothy Mae Prim, Elizabeth Prim Coffey, had a front row seat to her parents business especially since she helped at the bakery and lived upstairs above the business with her parents, brother and two sisters. She shares some of the bakery’s pricing and specialty items with us this morning.

It cost 15-cents for a half-dozen donuts and 45-cents for a dozen donuts while Hutson’s favorite, the fried pie, was 15-cents. Coffey remembers the standard fried pie flavors as apple, cherry, pineapple and peach. The seasonal flavors included raisin along with a few pumpkin pies.

Nut pastries were a big hit. “Tourists would buy dozens of them and tell Dad they froze them to get them to last and that they took them to work with them in their lunch boxes,” said Coffey. Here is a related story.

There were large pies, too; cream and pastry topped fruit pies were $2 or $3. Large cakes were also a favorite for $5 each.

“Dad began a wholesale business. He even had to add an extra delivery truck to the routes,” Coffey remembers.

The bakery burned 49-years ago this week, and months ago, the building was purchased by LUB, razed and then replicated to a great degree. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 06/23/2021-6AM)