re: Old southern general stores (it's SECRANT offseason for you dipsh*t newbies)

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Hamptons Store. Skullbone TN. Great bologna and cheese sandwiches. Granddaddy always would drink a 6oz bottled coke with peanuts in it while sitting around with the old farmers and telling lies

Not far down the road from me. Awesome place that used to have some good bands.

Old general stores are still a thing here in Kentucky. Get some jerky, hot sammich,an Ale-8, pick out a handgun or two.

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I don't know if this counts but we have a civil war store here that triggers the shite out of transplants and liberals.

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Love it. Down here in Costa Rica you see the battle flag and other Confederate emblems quite often.

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Mine too- well I don’t know about that tiny but I assume it started that way.k for sure. They sold food, shoes, hats even some small farm equipment. We had an old metal barrel for decor in our basement when I was a kid that was weathered and had a logo on it for whatever ice cream cones they sold. How that exactly worked I’m not sure but my dad used to sell them there when he was a kid. The old pics of the place are awesome.

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My great grandparents did too, not too far from Vicksburg. Pop Daddy (great grandfather) used to sit at the door and knew damn near everything there was to know about every family from Utica to Vicksburg to Port Gibson. Folks who couldn't read or write would just tell him who owned what so he could help settle their estates after they passed if needed.

I remember the butcher block being a giant old oak stump. Typing this even brings back the smell of all that freshly cut bacon and the fresh coffee around. Full service gas out front as well with two pumps. I can still remember helping Pop Daddy shell peas in the back when I was like three.

Place seemed as big as a Sears to me when I was a kid, but it probably wasn't as big as a family dollar really.

Lotta memories. Good thread.

Johnson’s Ranch Marina in Uncertain, Texas

Cooper's Country Store in Salters, SC. Good BBQ sammich there.

A relative of mine- a few gens older than me and a journalist- did a little history of the place years ago. Here’s an excerpt from it. I’m going to try and xxx out the names. Ha

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The store moved in 1914 to larger quarters only a few doors from their first location. The new building, although constructed for the firm, was rented until 1930 when the business purchased the building. It sits on the corner facing the railroad depot and only a few hundred yards from XXXX’s home. The store has 7,000 square feet of display space and 3,000 square feet of storage. In addition, the business had a warehouse behind and a chicken pen to the side to accommodate the stock coming and going. Along with a growing business both partners had growing families and, by the late 'teens, they were beginning to appear as clerks in the store. The children of both men were put to work as soon as they were "old enough to make change for a dollar."*

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The store remembered by these children from about 1920 forward had an amazing variety of stock. The merchandise included grocery items such as dried beans, dried fruits including raisins, peaches, apples, and apricots; staples like flour, sugar, lard, coffee, cheese, cornmeal, oat- meal, slab bacon, and salt pork; canned items including salmon and oysters; a complete line of building materials including sand, cement, linoleum, glass, nails of all kinds, and roofing; hardware and tools; ready-made clothing and yard goods, sewing supplies, cooking utensils; feed for cattle, horses, hogs, and fowl; Aladdin lamps and kerosene to fuel them; bleached and unbleached domestic cloth sold from bales to make sheets and pillowcases. A big and profitable department was patent medicines. Advertised vigorously to fill the gap left by profes- sional medicine in the early part of the century, these medications ad- dressed all types of ills including cuts, malaria, fevers of all kinds, chills, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, backaches, and colds. Tobacco pro ducts were another big seller including snuff, chewing, and smoking tobacco. The store also handled eyeglasses, and the clerks would use a standard eye chart to help the customers select a pair. For a time they even handled used pianos.

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I don’t know why but every time I’ve read that last line it makes me giggle.

There’s another article from the newspaper at the time that discusses how my ggpa was treated by some of the folks in town. He was German so they hated him just for that- threats, threw stuff at him etc, tried to lure him for business deals by coming to the door where my great grandma told them if her husband was going then she was going too so they decided never mind. Anyway, after that my great grandma went to a city council meeting and basically told people what was what and relations improved after that. :)

Can’t find a pic but morgan city grocery in Morgan City, Ms has great burgers and fits this description.

And the slot machines in the back room

I miss the bourbon mall south of Leland, Ms

RIP