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:
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| Himes Country Store Also Sells Coal |
After doing some googling, I learned that like Buzzy’s, the Himes Country Store has been a family-run business ever since it began. Whereas Buzzy’s has been run by two families, the Schumans and the Raley/Ridgells since its start in the 1880’s, Himes’ Store has been and continues to be run by only one family since it began in 1912. Today that legacy continues with the Store’s current owner Gary Himes shown here in a photo from the Himes Store’s FB page. Too, I found a Yelp review that does a nice job describing Himes Store:
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| 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: