Friendswood’s first business was a small general merchandise store opened on this site in 1907 by Quaker Cyrus J. Hadley of Lowell, Kansas. He and his wife, Elvira, also made stables available to the community. Before Hadley’s store, residents sent grocery lists with the mail carrier to League City, where he filled the orders and brought the groceries back with the mail as part of his duties under his postal service contract. After Hadley’s death in 1935, Manual and Florence Snow operated the business briefly before selling it in 1937 to Effie Albritton and her son Jimmie, who were local grocers until 1961. The first supermarket-style store in Friendswood, at 211 S. FM 518, was opened in 1952 by another Quaker, James Baker, and when it closed in 1982 it was the town’s last independent grocery.