Country Stores and General Mercantile establishments: Fading Americana, but holding on against the rising tide of Dollar Generals in Daydreaming on the Porch

I’ve often thought I was born in the wrong century because of my lifelong fascination with life in the 19th century. Yes, I tell people, I know lives were lived in hard and terrible conditions in fast growing and industrializing cities. And also on farms and in rural communities. Lifespans were shorter, and there were no vaccines, antibiotics, central air conditioning, Super Wal-Marts, Amazon or the Internet. But what people did have back then were families that lived nearby and stuck together instead of moving all over the country, and at least a tenuous sense of being in this crazy, mixed up world. No longer. The only things that brings communities and people together these days are horrific natural disasters like Hurricane Ian. What went wrong?

Generations ago in the country, people shopped for almost everything they needed at general or country stores, and bought flour and ground corn mill, oats and rye at water-powered grist mills.

There are not many of those old-timey general stores, or as they were often known, “general mercantile” stores, left. They’ve all been replaced by chain supermarkets and Dollar General stores in almost every corner of the country today. But the old relic stores from the past are still out there, and I’ve been to and marveled at about half a dozen of them over the years since 1973. I can still tell you about each of them and where they are located.

I have so many good memories of those stores visited during various road trips I’ve taken. Also, I’ve seen and photographed a couple dozen old grist mills around the country, some still in working order and grinding grain, others abandoned or simply ruins and remnants along a stream or larger creek where they once were central gathering places for rural folks, in addition to the old country stores.

Going far back, I can trace my earliest exposure to the simpler world of the 1800s to an adored and charismatic third grade teacher in a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana elementary school.

That year, 1959, when I was eight-years-old, we had a memorable reader titled “Singing Wheels,” one of the “Alice and Jerry Book” series, about a family living in a frontier village or settlement, probably from about the early to mid 19th century, in one of the states formed out of the old Northwest Territory that had been established in 1787. I am guessing that fictional pioneer village was located in either Indiana or Ohio.

The village was named Hastings Mills after the two grist mills in the community. The budding town was located on a stagecoach road and had a general store, blacksmith shop, an inn for passengers on the stagecoach line, a harness shop and couple of other stores.

One of the protagonists in the book was a boy named Tom, and he often appeared in various chapters of the book. In one episode Tom visited the general store in the community and on pages 71-72 are these passages:

If Mr. Lake was going to Mr. Carter’s store, Tom was going, too. They walked up to the door of the store together. Then, as if he were rooted to the spot, Tom stood still, overcome with surprise. He had never seen so many things in one place in his life. All along the walls, shelves were overflowing. [On one] there were candle molds, and on another dishes and some iron kettles. On still another we’re knives — all kinds of knives, from hunting knives to jack knives…

Tom grinned, walked slowly to the center of the store, and began to look into every barrel and keg and pail. Salt in this barrel, flour in that. Candy in this pail, coffee beans in that… Was it possible for anybody to want anything that Mr. Carter didn’t have in this store? Was that why it was called a general store?

I can locate those passages today because I bought a copy of that treasured third grade reader via a bookseller on the Internet about 15 years ago. It just so happened that I received the exact same 1955 edition that I had in school in 1959, and also have a copy of the teacher’s edition of the workbook for “Singing Wheels.”

It’s obvious that the reader and the stories of Tom and the others had a huge impact on me. As parents know, those early elementary years are critical for leaning to read, and because I had a teacher I liked so much, the love of books and reading instilled in me by my parents was re-unforced and greatly enhanced that year thanks to a remarkable and caring teacher, genuinely interested in my progress as her student.

I’ll never forget that teacher. I recall that on the last day of school we children were filing out of the classroom and walking down the sidewalk alongside the row of classrooms. I had not gone far when I turned around and saw Mrs. W. looking right at me. I ran back and gave her a big hug and then I was off to my summer of play and carefree days that would seem to stretch out endlessly, probably not aware at the time how much that one teacher had enriched my life.

Decades later, on one of my road-trip rambles, I visited the small mountain town of Saluda, NC, a quaint little village at the top of a steep railroad grade that was as idyllic as it was picturesque. I can imagine now, thinking about it, that the town might have started out in a similar fashion to Hastings Mills.

To my astonishment, in the little two-block Main Street, there were not one, but two, old fashioned general stores dating to the late 19th century, one of which in particular appeared, inside and out, exactly as you’d think a general mercantile store in a small town would look like, no matter the time period.

That historic establishment, and town landmark, was the M.A. Pace General Store. Doing some research I came across a couple of newspaper articles on the store, its owners and history.

According to one of the articles,

…the store traces its history back to 1899 and has retained the look and feel of an older hardware and general store. After [M.A.] Pace died, his son, Robert, and the Pace family ran the store until Robert’s death in 2010.

Today, Pace’s carries staples like bread and milk, but also other essential items for mountain life. Browse the store, and you’ll find everything from local vegetables, jams, and honey to rakes and paint. Original scales and carts are on display to illustrate the long history of the store. The giant old cash register, which Robert Pace used until his passing, sits next to the new one.

I remember visiting the store twice, the second time in 2009, just before Robert Pace’s death in 2010. I spoke with him briefly on that visit, and though he was alert, he didn’t look well. But I was transfixed by the information and stories he told me, and wandered around the store, marveling at everything, much as Tom did when he went to Mr. Carter’s general store in the fictional Hastings Mills, a village all-too-real in the imagination of a curious third-grader in 1959.

In preparing and researching this story, I’ve thought a lot about Saluda, that small and
fascinating mountain town I wish I could have spent a week in, visiting and touring the surrounding towns and countryside.

Going back to 1973, I and a good friend stepped back in time to wander around the J.A. Leitner General Store in Irmo, S.C., later the Ancient Irmese General Store, but now, sadly gone.  The wooden floor planks creaked, the shelves sagged with the weight of canned goods and other merchandise, and the presssed tin, decorative ceilings harkened back to the 19th and early 20th century in that magical place.   And true to form, there were old timers sitting around enjoying the warmth and camaraderie of a pot-bellied stove in winter.

I later re-visited the store when I worked for a local weekly newspaper in 1975. In a photo essay on the town of Irmo, I wrote this:

J.A. Leitner’s old general store on Woodrow Street is still pretty much the way it always was… Inside one steps back in time to a period when general stores handled just about every kind of merchandise, and where people got together around a wood-burning stove on cold winter days…

Fortunately I saved the article and am reading it now, thinking back to those years when I was a young newspaper reporter just starting out, full of the excitement, enthusiasm and idealism of youth.

On the Flickr photo-sharing site, people love to post their pictures of old general stores from bygone days, many of which still thrive and serve rural areas as updated convenience stores.   It’s not the same as it was, but at least the old buildings are saved and preserved.

Another way to see old general stores is in wall calendar scenes, highly idealized, but realistic nevertheless — so inviting and cozy. If I were to paint such a scene, this is what I’d imagine (from a journal entry I wrote some years ago):

A country store with people gathered in front in chairs and on benches, leaning back, taking in a quiet, late summer afternoon in the country. Hardly a car passing by on the road. Inside are old-fashioned jars filled with candy, and long wooden counters, and hardware supplies, and general merchandise — all you’d really need, mostly, for a simple life.

And I’d stop my car and get out and walk in through the front screen door with the Merita Bread sign on it, and head for the soft drink case, open the lid, put my coins in, and retrieve a bottle of the iciest cold, Orange Nehi drink that ever quenched a thirst in July, and with it eat some crackers, and walk around in the store, smelling the good smells, hearing the old floorboards creak as I walk on them, looking up at the ornamental pressed tin panels in the old ceiling from when the building was constructed in the last century.

And finally, I’ll sigh with relief and satisfaction, knowing that not all those old country stores have been lost to the world of big-box emporiums and huge supermarkets, traffic, and noise with not much quiet civilization left. In old general stores I am transported out of the present to places where the past truly lives on. I wish it would last.

Two articles on the Pace General Store

https://www.goupstate.com/story/news/2012/11/25/general-store-in-saluda-keeps-the-pace-since-1899/30012698007/

https://wncmagazine.com/feature/keeping_pace

A photo album of my last visit to the Pace M.A. General Store in Saluda, NC:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/634ixG1Ku6

For further reading:

Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store by Thomas D. Clark

American Country Stores by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones

Country Ways: A Celebration of Rural Life by Paul Engle

A matted and framed photo of the Rabbit Hash Country Store by Jeanne Sheridan

https://flic.kr/p/2nRqMqV

A photo copy of one of the photos I took for the newspaper article I wrote on The J.A. Leitner General Store in 1975 (It has been renamed, unfathomably, The Ancient Irmese General Store.

https://flic.kr/p/2nRpBTn

Last updated October 08, 2022