This building was constructed around 1908 as the Burton
& Wise Drug Store. The Burton and
Bradford families owned it until 1975, but G. W. Hughes rented it from 1925 to
1972. The early manually-operated
telephone switchboard for Madison was located here, in an upstairs apartment
for many years. Operator Viola Styles
Keel slept on a cot beside the apparatus, while her two sons Buddy and Percy
shared a bedroom in the apartment. The
downstairs was used as the drugstore of long-time pharmacist George Walton
Hughes, known to all as "Doc" because he attended to a variety of
medical conditions in the town. When the
town had only two telephones, one was in Doc's store so that he could provide
medicine and news to the town folk. 
For many years during the Great Depression of the 1930s, this building was the location of Madison's renowned “chicken toss” on Christmas Eve. Doc Hughes would go onto the roof and toss off live chickens that would fly to the waiting crowd on the streets below. Each chicken had a prize coupon taped around its leg. The coupons were redeemable for merchandise in Doc's store. Many families of the time received their only Christmas presents in this manner, as well as getting a fine chicken dinner.
In later years, Doc moved his chicken toss to the 75-foot tall city water tank that stood at Garner and Martin Streets behind the 2-story second City Hall.
There are many stories of the Christmas Capers from Madison's early history. One is that the event was so popular and the resultant crowd so large during the Great Depression years that one time a chicken was able to fly all the way across Main and Front Streets to land under the house at 25 Front Street now owned by Dennis Vaughn. As the crowd chased the chicken to get the bird and the merchandise certificate, the press of people knocked down the fence in the front yard by the street. Several men crawled under the house, and one finally got the fowl. The certificates were not always for really large prizes as we think of such today. I (John Rankin) have heard that sometimes they were for pencils or pads of notepaper and such, but for those who otherwise would have nothing to take home to their families for Christmas, the chicken and the pencils or just about anything was welcomed.
