Quinton’s on a Snowy Night, South Ninth Street

Stephen Bybee
Columbia, MO
1998

Quinton’s on Ninth Street. I think I only patronized this establishment a rare handful of times…maybe twice. Not that I had any issues with Quinton’s, but it just wasn’t my kind of place. In 1998, when this photo was taken, my kind of place would have been The Heidelberg, Shakespeare’s, or Billiards. But I was fascinated with the way Quinton’s looked, especially the artistic quality lent to it by the two trees that flanked each side of the building, and the blue neon sign that hung brightly above the faux copper awning. This photograph was taken during a late winter snowstorm that Columbia received in March 1998. Because the snow started on a Sunday evening, downtown Columbia was virtually empty, with no cars parked on the streets, most of the sidewalks empty, and the businesses closed. I left the house around 9:30 or 10 p.m. to come downtown and make photographs, a trip that yielded two rolls of film and a handful of memorable and now historically meaningful images. The snow was still falling that night when I took this photograph, and the city snowplow was the only other vehicle I saw for most of the night. The windows of Quinton’s are fogged, as they were on many nights, and the small neon signs advertising beer and other wholesome comforts modestly illuminate the interior. To the keen-eyed viewer, stool legs can be seen above tabletops, as the stools were stacked on tables before the Sunday evening sweep and mop. In retrospect, a faculty which prides itself on its foresight, I wish I had taken many more photos and many more rolls of film during that beautiful snowstorm. So much has changed in Columbia in the intervening 26 years, and this particular image of South Ninth Street is a scene that can be seen no longer.