1900's General Store Frozen in Time After Closing in 1970 and still has Inventory
Old country stores have always been one of my favorite stories to document. I started the Appalachian Homes, People and Places on Facebook in 2014, to have a place to post photographs that I have taken over the past years. I had noticed the Ellison's store on old Hwy 63 in the Wells Springs area of Campbell County. My entire life while traveling down that old country road, but it wasn't until 2014 that I posted the first picture of it. In March of 2021, the store caught my attention again, but somehow this time I was going to find out it's story and not just drive on by. The store sits on the corner of Hwy 63 and Academy Road. The historic Speedwell Academy sits directly behind the Ellison's store. I have went on several different tours of the Speedwell Academy over the past 20 years when they would open it to the public. I also always noticed the house that sits to the left of the store because it had the same bright white limestone hand cut rock foundation of the building. Another thing that I noticed the fence wall in front of the house and the store look the same but are a darker type of limestone than the foundation.
I stopped to take pictures across the street of the old Smith Service Station, when a guy on his side by side pulled up beside me to see what I was doing. Come to find out, he owns the property on the left side of Academy Road where the house sits and it was his grandpa's store. Daryl was his name, but he admitted he knew little about the stores history since he was only 5 years old when his grandfather passed away. Daryl told me that his brother Tommy owned the property on the other side of the road where the store still sits. He told me that his cousin Pam was the historian of the family and knew more about the store than anyone else living now. It just so happens that I knew his cousin Pam and contacted her on Facebook to see if she would give me more information about the store. I decided to go ahead and contact Tommy on Facebook through his wife. I was able to arrange a time with Tommy to go visit the store and make the video that I have filmed. I felt like a kid at Disney World when I walked through the doors of this store that had been closed over 50 years!
As with most buildings that have set for 50 years this one has had burglars ransack it and a tornado hit it a few years ago. Most all items of value have disappeared over the years but there were still many fascinating items to explore. One of the items that still stands out to me in my mind was the box of TUMS that you can get 3 rolls of for thirty-three cents. The rocking chair that I.T. Ellison died in still sits next to the old coal stove. I was so fascinated that the store had never been updated and still had all the wood counters and shelving. The store had never been modernized with newer metal type shelving. On the left side of the store sits a store counter about 30 feet long and on the right side of the store sits a counter about 40 feet long. So many things to look at, including an old vintage radio that caught my attention. I could imagine they used this radio for music and news as they sat by the coal stove. On the right side of the store we found clothing and shoes still in their boxes, frozen in time for over 50 years. Tommy showed me a roll of wrapping paper with the company's logo printed on it. One of the things it says is, "Trade at Home." Apparently, Ellison had issues with people buying from mail-order catalogs, because his tagline says, "Where You Get What You Want WHEN You Want It and Where You SEE What You Buy BEFORE You Buy It." A hundred years ago, small businesses seemed to have the same issue with mail-order catalogs as they do today with the internet. Ellison's Trade-at-Home campaign is what we now call "SHOP LOCAL". One of the things that I wanted to know most was when did this store first open, but for those answers and more, I would have to wait for my visit with Pam. It was a great treat for me to meet Tommy and his family and to document his grandpa's store.
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