For those wondering, I just spoke to a good friend who also grew up in the same town and mentioned the traction this post got and he clarified that the roll is actually real, the holder is leftover from when the previous building burnt down decades ago but the property owners replace the roll on it every few years when it inevitibly decays and have been doing so for about 3 generations, hence why it was there when we were kids and still is now, it’s just sort of a running joke/“urban legend” for the town.
I wound up putting another comment down below, I spoke to a friend of mine that also grew up there and whose parents still live there and have for quite a while, turns out it’s a running joke from the property owners, idl what type of tp they’re using or if there’s some other roll of paper that looks like tp they put on but you’re mostly correct, the original building burnt down a long time ago but the roll holder was left, so the property owners where putting on regular tp rolls as a joke, and have been doing it for about 30 years now, I assume they’re using some kind of rolled wax paper now considering the condition it looks to be in so it doesn’t degrade as fast but yeah, turned out to be just a running joke the owners do.