Nov 24, 2013

Craft Gallery Marks 20 Years in WacoBy Mike CopelandWacoTrib.com

Waco, TX – It was 1993 and Ralph Lee had just opened a novelty shop called Craft Gallery at State Highway 6 and Bosque Boulevard. Waco businessman Tom Salome had recruited Lee to place something in his new acquisition, Bosque Square Shopping Center.

“Four months after we opened, the Winn-Dixie grocery store shut down,” Lee recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh. That was short-lived.’ I had knots in my stomach.”

Twenty years later, Lee can chuckle about Craft Gallery’s tenuous beginnings. The 8,500-square-foot mixture of homemade doodads, antiques, jewelry and smart-alecky signs has become a destination point for browsers from Greater Waco and beyond.

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