Country Life and Ledgers

Before suits in corporate boardrooms determined the cookie-cutter layouts and mass-marketed inventories of literally thousands of department stores, Walmarts, and Targets, it was the general store that served a community, and no two general stores were ever the same.

The stock on the shelves, from funeral clothing to candy to medicines, and the services rendered, from tanning hides to grinding coffee, were tailored by shopkeepers to match the needs and desires of the locals. The ledgers of general stores, as a result, have much to tell us about mountain history: patterns of agriculture, diet, clothing, and transportation; the advance of technologies; education; and the ailments for which remedies were sought.

To author Gerald Carson, general stores were distinctly Americana.

“The Yankee peddler had his roots in Europe. The city merchant and the shopkeeper had their analogues in older lands,” he wrote. “But the general store was an American origination, something new under the sun, improvised to meet the raw conditions of a new continent.”

The earliest country stores are described as being simplistic in their selection, but merchants soon expanded and diversified their stock, bringing the fineries and indulgences of  Charleston or Europe to even the smallest of communities. Even in the mountains, where transportation could be slow and precarious, merchants supplied a bounty of products for their customers.

In his lengthy historical account of the American general store—The Old Country Store, published in 1954—Carson wrote, “Yet it was…the interior of the store and what it contained that made a well-run country store seem in the Centennial year of [18]76 no less than a World’s Fair exhibition itself, with the products of all nations, the fruits of all science and industry on parade.”

The general store sold groceries, hardware, shoes, confections, medicines, fabric and sewing supplies, jewelry, hats, dishes, books and stationery, and tobacco. Some also butchered and cured hogs, traded livestock, tanned hides, and ran a gristmill.

There was the James Bane Price Country Store in Price’s Fork, for instance, which operated from 1871 until the 1930s and was located in a mountain community just east of the New River and west of Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech. Eight ledgers found in the store’s attic were published in a 1983 book, providing insight into the store’s daily operations and the needs of rural nineteenth century consumers.

Londa Woody profiled a number of historic general stores of Macon and surrounding counties in North Carolina in a book published in 2001. Nolen’s, established in 1891 about seven miles west of Franklin, served a community called Cartoogechaye, trading clothing, shoes, jewelry, sundries, food, animal feed and tobacco. “Though the town of Franklin was only a few miles away, Nolen’s was so well stocked, some people didn’t venture into Franklin for up to five years at a time,” remarked Woody.

West’s Mill Store, north of Franklin, operated a gristmill and livery and tack, and its commodities included kerosene and locally made coffins. It, and its later incarnation, C.N. West General Merchandise, was open from 1906 until the ‘80s.

Foxfire—a magazine published by high school students in Rabun County, Ga., since 1966, containing stories and interviews gathered from Southern Appalachian elders—reprinted a group of articles about general stores in its ninth anthology, Foxfire 9. They told of the Fort Hembree Store and Tannery in Hayesville, N.C., founded by John C. Moore, son of Irish immigrants. He was born in Rutherford County and is said to be the first white man to move into the Tusquittee Valley area, where he opened the “first big store” in Western North Carolina. A Fort Hembree ledger from 1846 and 1847 recorded trades of a harness, shoe soles, bell collars, sheepskin, calf skin, deer skins, hog skin, and even dog skins. A review of the ledgers of the Patton D. Queen Store in Mountain City, Ga., revealed that tobacco was the store’s top seller.

Founded in 1883, the Taylor and Mast General Store remains open today as the original Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, located in the North Carolina High Country. Invoices and store ledgers preserved in the Appalachian State University library archives reveal that much of the store’s inventory came from suppliers in Bristol, Elizabethton and Johnson City, Tenn. One document indicates that goods were delivered to Elk Park, N.C.—a town fifteen miles southwest of Valle Crucis and a stop on the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, or “Tweetsie,” which ran from Cranberry, N.C., to Johnson City, Tenn. Japanese rice, silk chiffon, tomatoes, string beans, mustang liniment, coffins and caskets, and a range and enamelware from Chattanooga were among the store’s orders in 1906.

Shopping carts weren’t necessary: according to store ledgers, customers typically only bought between one and three items at a time.

The term for doing business at a general store was to “trade”—not to “shop” or to “buy”—which was accurate, since very few transactions involved cash. Instead, customers traded produce from their farms or their services for items they could not raise at home. Mary Hazel Farthing Mast, 84, is the daughter of R.A. Farthing, who ran the store just down the road from the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. Today the store is owned by Mast and called the Mast Store Annex—it’s where you’ll find the candy barrel. Mary married H.W. Mast, the grandson of W.W. Mast.

“You didn’t, in the store back then, you didn’t go around picking stuff yourself,” Mast said. Customers handed a list of needed items to the store owner or clerk, who fetched the products for them.

“They bought food for animals in big sacks. My mother used to make dresses for us out of the cloth of those sacks.”

Haskel Deal, 90, remembers trading at Hubbard’s Groceries and Childers General store. He would trade eggs, which sold for about 1 and 1/2 cents apiece, for snuff for his grandmother. It would take around six eggs to get a small box of snuff. One time Haskel would not go to get his grandmother snuff because there were not enough eggs to get candy too—a thing he later felt badly about.

At the Fort Hembree store, one farmer would bring in a cow hide to be tanned, split down the backbone into two pieces. The farmer would take one half for use on the farm and leave the other half as payment, which the shop owner could then sell to shoe makers or other merchants.

The Foxfire students compiled of a list of items and services traded as payment by Fort Hembree’s customers, including potatoes, onions, fur and feathers, wool, beeswax, bear skin, steers, iron, flax seed, butter, green hide, opossum, cat and raccoon skins, mink skin, gold, whiskey, chairs, fruit, driving cattle, work on a chimney, cutting wood, and “services of wife.” Up at the Price Country Store in Virginia in 1871, a day of hauling was good for a $4 store credit; Henry Snider earned a $1.50 credit for making two plows.

In 1925, the first customer at the Rickman Store in Franklin, N.C., traded three eggs for a spool of thread. “That has become our logo,” said Elena Carlson of the Friends of Rickman Store, the volunteer organization that now works to preserve the establishment. “We always use that to remember what was the life in Cowee [Valley] at that time.” To celebrate the store’s anniversary each year, the Friends organize a “Bartering Day,” in which community members bring items they want to trade. “It’s a lot of fun…to see that there is so much resources that can be traded in that way without the use of money,” she said.

Store owners were savvy businessmen. At West’s Mill Store, leftover candy and mixed nuts went on sale after Christmas. “Large peppermint sticks that usually sold for $1 a box then sold for thirty-five cents. Kids knew a bargain when they saw one,” wrote Woody. Five miles northwest of Franklin, Duvall’s General Merchandise set prices a little higher than those in town, but Grady Duvall kept customers coming through the doors by undercutting everyone on two items: two packs of cigarettes for a quarter and three candy bars for a dime.

And in many ways, all of these stores served as community centers. The area post office was located there; so was the only telephone available for public use. As more families began to own automobiles, general stores added service stations, and cars parked beside horses at the hitching posts. Citizens gathered around wood and coal stoves to tell stories or play chess. The Rickman Store served as a polling place on Election Day, and a barber traveled to the store on a regular basis to provide haircuts. The store owner was a purveyor of news and information: “If they wanted people to know things, they would give the word to Mr. Rickman. It’s where everyone knew what was going on,” said Carlson. “It was more than just a general store. It was the center of the community.”

Frank C. Moore, the great-great grandson of John C. Moore, founder of the Fort Hembree store, longed for those times in the Foxfire account, lamenting, “Back when I was a little boy, my daddy sold goods and they all came to the store. I was just a little kid, but I knew them. I’m living in a new age. I’m living in an age now where I’m nearly a stranger in my own county. People’s moving in here by the hundreds, and not twenty or thirty years ago I knew everybody in Clay County by name.”

Still doing business

T.M. Rickman Store • Franklin, N.C.

For the better part of the 20th century, Thomas Rickman manned the counter at the T.M. Rickman General Store in Franklin, N.C. Constructed in 1895, Rickman acquired the building in 1925, running the store until his death in 1994 at the age of 93. Mr. Rickman lived in the quarters above the store with his wife Fannie, daughter Zena Pearl and son James Roy, and all took part in the store’s daily operations.

Londa Woody featured the Rickman and about a dozen other Macon County area stores in her 2001 book All in a Day’s Work. “The stock was standard merchandise of the time,” she said about Rickman’s inventory. “Thomas sold more flour than anything else in the early days because people made their own bread. He used to say he couldn’t give away a bag of store-bought bread and that people laughed because he carried it.” Like many other general store operators of the day, Rickman assumed the community duties that needed fulfilling. A truck he purchased to haul lumber and mica also hauled other “cargo” for a time—because he was the only one around with a truck, Rickman was appointed the undertaker. Rickman bought and sold chickens and provided apples from his orchard, and checkers and horseshoes tournaments made for regular entertainment.

Because the store was located close to the Cowee school, children often were tasked with buying their families’ groceries and bringing them home by school bus. Once, said Elena Carlson, a member of the Friends of Rickman Store, a girl carried money to pay for groceries, and a friend convinced her to buy the groceries on credit and use the cash to buy ice cream for their classmates. Rickman was immediately aware of their scheme but sold the ice cream to them anyway, later calling the school to tell someone what had happened. “He made sure the kids learned their lesson,” Elena said.

After Rickman’s death, the store was sold to a woman who sold crafts, antiques, ice cream, and other tourist-oriented items, and then to a woman who planned an art gallery there but never realized her vision. When the old store was again put up for sale in 2007, the nonprofit Land Trust for the Little Tennessee saw an opportunity to preserve a historic and cultural treasure.

“The decision to buy the store was a pretty big deal for our organization,” said Paul Carlson, executive director of the LTLT. “Since then we’ve acquired several historic buildings.” A coalition of community volunteers formed the Friends of the Rickman Store, who coordinate events at the building and help the trust raise the money to pay for its purchase. The store now hosts dances, lectures, plays, children’s programs, gardening classes, seed swaps, and mountain musicians, and offers local crafts and artisan foods for sale. The group has restored about 85 to 90 percent of Rickman’s collection of old tools, antiques, shotguns, saddles, horseshoes, lanterns and other artifacts.

“That is what we try to keep alive at the store. Not only the objects, but also the spirit,” said Elena.

The T.M. Rickman General Store, located at 251 Cowee Creek Road, is open every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the summer. For more info, call 828.369.5595.

Mast General Store • Valle Crucis, N.C.

With its distinctive front façade, white siding, green trim, and antique Esso gas sign, the original Mast General Store in Valle Crucis has landed on many a list of North Carolina and national icons. Even more extraordinary is that the store, built in 1882 and opened by C.D. Taylor in 1883, continues to operate full time to this day, serving Valle Crucis community members and tourists alike.

William Wellington Mast purchased a half interest in the store in 1897, changing the business’ name to the Taylor and Mast General Store. W.W. Mast bought out his partner in 1913, and the Mast family owned and operated the establishment until 1973, when it was sold to an Atlanta doctor and Appalachian State University professor. But in 1977 the owners closed the store. By this time, the advent of national chain stores and the movement of people from downtowns to suburbs had forced many general stores out of business. But John and Faye Cooper nevertheless felt compelled to invest in the nearly-100-year-old store, reopening it in June 1980.

“We just felt somebody should save it,” said Faye, recalling that on her husband’s first visit to the store, before 1977, that “his friends literally had to drag him out.” Like the shopping malls that were springing up everywhere, the Coopers saw the Mast Store as a “one-stop shopping adventure,” said Faye. “It’s a unique place in a beautiful setting. It has a lot of history. We wanted to allow the future generations to have a place to see how their grandparents were able to shop.”

“I just thought it was so neat that it would appeal to other people,” said John. “I thought it had a future.” He was right about that. His future business model, though, came as a surprise given the retail patterns of the time. Originally seeing potential in catalog and later online sales, the Coopers have found true success in opening new brick-and-mortar stores—often targeting old buildings and helping to revitalize downtowns. Today, the company operates stores in Boone, Asheville, Waynesville, and Hendersonville, N.C.; Columbia and Greenville, S.C.; and Knoxville, Tenn., selling traditional mercantile items, outdoor gear, candy, old-fashioned toys and games, and more.

“That really was not a vision I had when I opened the store in 1980,” said John.

Back in Valle Crucis, the Coopers have changed very little of the original store’s design, preserving the store’s original fixtures, décor and advertisements. A few years ago, the original store underwent a major renovation to preserve the floor and install a sprinkler system. The store continues to serve as the local post office, which the Coopers worked to restore after the station was lost in 1977.

“One of the first things we did was try to get the post office back. We offered to do it for $1 a year,” remembered John. “We were turned down the first time—they thought we weren’t serious.”

Locals stop by for a cup of coffee in the morning before work, said Faye, and some stop by to pick up there lunch there. “A lot of local folks come down and sit and visit,” she said.

“We have felt very good about the culture that we’ve helped to perpetuate,” she added. “We tried to uphold the traditions and the values of a general store.”

The original Mast General Store, located at 2918 Broadstone Road, is open from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 828.963.6511.

Cumberland Mountain General Store • Clarkrange, Tenn.

“There’s not too many of us left in Tennessee,” remarked Todd Evans. He acknowledged the existence of a number of old general stores in North Carolina, but in the Volunteer State, Evans only knows of three or four. One is the Cumberland Mountain General Store in Clarkrange, Tenn., a tiny community on the Cumberland Plateau.

Originally built in 1923 as the Todd McDonald General Store on Highway 127, the store was due to be demolished in the early ‘80s, but a local family preserved the building, having it moved across the street. It was then renamed the Cumberland Mountain General Store. Evans, who has helped out around the store for the past two decades, purchased the property within the past year.

“There’s nothing like it,” he says. The building still features the original counters, shelves, floor, and ceiling from 1923—and even the original cash register is still in use. “We do antiques and collectibles, homemade fudge, and bulk candy that people haven’t seen since they were little kids,” said Evans. Adjoining the store is a 1950s-style diner.

“It’s not been modernized. We don’t do any bar codes or scanning,” Evans noted, calling the store’s recent acceptance of credit cards its “biggest upgrade.”

In years past, the 5,000-square-foot store closed from Christmas to Memorial Day, but Evans hopes to keep the store open year round. The store is popular with tourists, classic car clubs and motorcycle riders.

Cumberland Mountain General Store is a participant in the annual 127 Sale, held the first weekend of August. Known as the “World’s Longest Yard Sale,” the event is a series of yard sales along 690 miles of Highway 127 from Alabama to Michigan. “We usually get between 150 and 200 vendors setting up on the property,” said Evans. “It’s an event like you’ve never seen before.”

Cumberland Mountain General Store is located at 6807 South York Highway and is generally open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For more information, call 931.863.3880.