Life in Southport is pretty darn sweet. But many people tell me that it used to be sweeter, when Mr. Willie McKenzie and his wife, Anna, ran their confectionary shop on Howe Street. In 1910, Mr. Willie became one of the first Black businessowners in Southport. His delicious treats and warm personality soon made Willie McKenzie’s Ice Cream Parlor one of the most popular businesses in town.

Customers could sit at small tables or at stools near the soda fountain to eat. The ice cream was served in a choice of bowls or cones, or it could be packed into wire-handled cartons to carry home. The McKenzies made their ice cream by hand, adding peaches or strawberries when they were in season. They had a big freezer that had to be packed with salt and ice. On Saturday nights they’d make as much as 15 or 20 gallons to sell on Sunday. Sometimes, they’d sell out.  

They served hand-shaved ice, topped with a choice of vanilla, grape, strawberry, orange or Pepsi-Cola flavored syrup. They also sold sodas, milk shakes, and snowballs. Mrs. McKenzie cooked custard, baked pies, and made “brown dogs”, a local Southport candy cooked with peanuts and sugar.

It’s likely that having his own business had been a lifelong ambition for Willie. He had been born in Southport in 1877, back when it was still called Smithville. His father had died when he was young.  His mother worked as a laundress, determined to give her children an education and a good start in life.

When Willie was old enough, he got a job working as a steward, and then later as a cook on a U.S. steamer. He used some of his earnings to help send his sister, Sarah, to school in Elizabeth City so that she could become a teacher. At the time there were no Black schools in Brunswick County that went higher than the 7^th grade. Sarah became one of the first to get a high school diploma.

After helping his sister achieve her dream, Willie started working toward his own. With his mother’s help he saved enough to start a business.  He hired a local builder to construct two white frame buildings side-by-side on Howe St. He used one for his confectionary and the other as a pool hall and dance club. That second building would eventually become a family home, but he and Anna would run the Ice Cream Parlor for 58 years. It would become the city’s oldest business operating in the same location, under the same management.

The centerpiece of the parlor was a white marble fountain, that Anna had given to Willie as a gift. She had earned the money by taking in laundry, saving 25 cents per week until she had enough. Recently, that same fountain resurfaced at another ice cream shop in Southport. Chuck Geisel and his wife Debbie purchased the fountain from a private owner and put it in Chuck’s Homemade Old Fashion Ice Cream Parlour.

The Geisels have been in the ice cream business for nearly 50 years, almost as long as the McKenzies. It seems fitting that the fountain which started out in one family-owned, homemade-ice-cream business, should have found its way to another.  Often historic artifacts are all but forgotten in a dusty corner of a garage or attic. So, it’s a special treat to see this treasured bit of Southport’s history once again being used as it was intended, when Anna first gave it to Willie, so many decades ago.  

You can watch a video interview in front of the counter on our youtube channel