SILVERHILL, Alabama — The building that houses United Bank in Silverhill is not your typical bank building.

In fact, it doesn’t look like a bank building at all. It looks more like an old-fashioned country store. That’s because for more than 70 years, that’s what it was.

Established in 1902 by Theodore Johnson, People’s Supply served as a general mercantile store for the town of Silverhill and surrounding area up until the 1970s, selling everything from dry goods and grocery items to fence posts and barbed wire.

Even though it has not been a general store in nearly 40 years, people still mistake it for one, say bank employees.

When Bryan Chandler started as mortgage service manager at the bank last summer, he experienced that first-hand within his first week on the job.

“We have another office across the street from my office and I had to go over there for something,” he said. “When I came back there was a man with a trailer parked next to the building.

‘Do you have any rope,’ he asked. I said, ‘I think we might have some in there somewhere. Let me see what I can find.’

‘I thought this was a store,’ he responded. I said, ‘No sir, this is a bank.’”

A native of Silverhill and a 1984 graduate of Robertsdale High School, Chandler has a special connection with the building.

“This was my aunt’s bedroom,” he said of his office, which is located in an upstairs area of the store.

Chandler’s grandfather, Leslie Chandler, came to work for then-owner George Marinos in the 1920s and after Marnios died, the elder Chandler would eventually take over ownership of the store.

“The story is that Marinos left the store to his step-grandson (his wife’s grandson),” Chandler said. “But my grandfather had done so much with the store over the years and Mrs. Marinos always thought the store should go to him.”

So she convinced her grandson to deed the store over to Leslie Chandler and in 1928, he moved upstairs with his wife, 2-year-old son Sidney, Bryan’s father, and infant daughter, Thelma.

Leslie and his wife Elsie, who would serve as Silverhill’s librarian for decades (at one time, well into her 90s, she was the oldest librarian in the state of Alabama), and their young family would live upstairs for more than 20 years before building a home outside of town.

“I don’t remember how old I was when I began helping out,” says Sidney. “I started as soon as I could reach the cash register. Back then you served the customer. They came in, asked for something, and it was your job to get them whatever they needed.”

Sidney Chandler, who turns 90 next month, remembers growing up in the store when there was an outside staircase leading up to a porch in the back with access to the living quarters.

“During the summer when it was hot, we would sleep out on the back porch,” he said. Soon after moving into the store, Sidney Chandler said his father had a bathroom put on the back porch area. “Before that we had to use a two-seater (outhouse).”

Also, there was no heat upstairs, so Leslie Chandler installed ceiling fans to draw heat from downstairs.

Sidney also remembers his father helping people during the Depression in the 1930s and during World War II.

“My father gave people credit as long as he ran the store,” Sidney said. “He and Mr. Marinos decided early on that as long as they were there, people would not go hungry in Silverhill.”

He also remembers being able to hunt in the middle of town and going fishing every Thursday with his father.

“Back then, everybody around closed up at noon on Thursday and on Sunday,” he said. “It was a much simpler time, until people started coming in from the big cities. They couldn’t stand the fact that we would close.”

Bryan Chandler’s connection to his father goes beyond working in the place where he grew up. They also share their choice of profession.

Sidney Chandler worked for the Baldwin County Savings and Loan in Robertsdale for more than 35 years, retiring as president in 1987.

Bryan Chandler also followed his father by serving in the Robertsdale Rotary Club, which his father served as a member from nearly the beginning of the club in the late 1970s.

The younger Chandler, who has been a member of the club for just four years, has served the past year as president and will continue to serve on the club’s Board of Directors after handing over the gavel to Carl Davis in June.

“I’m proud of him,” Sidney Chandler said. “I’m proud of all of my kids, but I am particularly proud of Bryan. He has always been a leader wherever he goes.”