Linda Lepper told me about the Himes Country Store located in Knoxville, Maryland just east of Harpers Ferry and sent me these photos she took on a recent road trip through that area:
Too, I found a Yelp review that does a nice job describing Himes Store:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/himes-store-knoxville |
In her text to me, along with the above photos, Linda wrote: “In the store there is a wooden barrel with sugar in it from the depression era. Sugar is still in it. Chris’ Grandfather used to sit on it.” Thus, I had to laugh when I read in one of the newspaper articles I cited above:
Joseph, Dots father-in-law, opened the original store in 1912 down the hill. He was a train conductor, too, and according to the story, sold quite a bit of sugar during prohibition.
That’s how those country stores rolled back then!
Another comment in one of the articles also made me smile when a new employee Julie McGrane was wondering why the men in the Himes Store were just hanging around and not purchasing anything:
When I first started, men would come in the morning and afternoon, and theyd be standing around, just talking in a group, McGrane said. The minutes would go by, Id get anxious, you know, Can I help you? Can I help you? But they were just stopping by to chat and catch up Gary had to tell me that. Hed say, Relax, theyre not in a hurry. They may buy something, they may not.
And that’s how you know when you’re in an honest to goodness country store – people standing around just hanging out.
Nice little video here featuring a Country Store in Vermont: