The general store was the focal point of a community. crammed with everything from axe handles to zippers, a place neighbors could drop by to share the gossip of the town and do a bit of shopping. Most general stores had a few things in common; i.e., a porch out front, where people could talk and load and unload goods; large windows for display; pillars supporting an upper balcony at the front of a second story where the merchant often lived; a large undivided merchandise area for the store, and the stores usually had long, wonderfully built oak cabinets that extended to the ceiling. The employees were local people, and everyone was called by their first names. Often the store served double duty as the local post office. Barter was common, and credit was often extended until farmers got paid for their crops. Many eventually sold gasoline from pumps installed in front of the stores as automobiles arrived in the communities.

It is hard to forget, for those of us old enough to remember this sort of thing, the crowded shelves, the glass showcases and all of the things that hung from the ceiling. The long counters were always piled high with inventory and heavy brown paper and cast-iron string holders and chocolate bars and gum and candy and butter, cheese, meat and vegetables. We remember the smell of fresh ground coffee, sharp cheddar cheese, dried fruit, and kerosene. The items that were kept "under the counter were asked for in a whisper and then pre-wrapped in brown paper. Young boys on one leg and then the other asking delicate questions were always surprised when the clerk anticipated the question and fielded the question with ease. In the case of the Pennington Store in Benton, we certainly remember Doyle Pennington with his constant cigar and plastic cigar holder. As Archie Bunker would say, "Those were the days."

We received an email from a person planning a trip to the upper Fishing Creek area who asked where he could find an operating general store. We had mentioned Swisher's Store before, and the visitor looks forward to carving off some sharp cheese in that store in the near future. There actually are a couple more country stores in operation.

Benton Store Company

(Currently an antique mart)

Linda Moss remembers growing up when George Post owned the Fairmount Springs General Store. Linda remembers climbing the steps leading into the dark, old fashioned store. She writes, "We were allowed to choose a soda from the cooler (5 cents at the time) where they were hanging in ice water. The root beer was so spicy on the tongue, the birch beer filled your mouth with that wonderful sweet taste, and the cream soda was smooth. It was always so hard to choose. Then we would take a trip to the candy counter. My siblings and I would have 10 cents to pick 10, yes 10 pieces of candy. It was wonderful. I remember the smell of the store, the bread, produce, and feed smells."

George Post also delivered groceries to the Moss house every Friday, bringing the groceries ordered by Linda's Mother on Wednesday of that week. "George Post would drive up in his station wagon and unload and deliver them to our kitchen. He always had a piece of candy for each of us."

Linda remembers that "Our mail carrier would deliver emergency bread or cereal during the week if we ran out. Now they don't even want to take time if you get the zip code wrong, they send it back to you and after you correct it have to put another stamp on it."

The photo was taken to record Dorothy's first sale at the store, a container of tobacco (for $0.10 and a penny box of matches). Dorothy Bennett Ruckle, by the way, was the sister of Don Bennett and Neola Girton. Don Bennett partnered with Edgar Baker in the Baker and Bennett Store on Main Street, Benton. Neola married Paul Girton, of Girton Manufacturing Company

John Herbert Laubach remembers watching Grant Johnson weigh out carpenter's glue, nails, butter, sugar, candy etc. when his Uncle George Parker took him to shop. Paul Girton was the cousin of George Parker and John's mother, Bernice Parker Laubach.

Grant Johnson had what the old folks called "a hitch in his gitup." In later years he would be in front of the store and take 10, 15, or 25 steps whithout moving an inch. After a while he would master forward motion and start walking home.

Notice the number of employees in the picture above, as many for this small store as some of the large stores have today--and we betcha they knew the answer to all the questions customers asked, unlike the employees in many stores we visit today.

The Harrison General Store, Forks, PA

(No longer in business)

The Columbia Country Historical Society currently displays a great picture of the Harrison General Store at Forks on its home page .

The general store was much more than it appeared to be. It served the Bloomsburg & Sullivan Railroad, the United State Post Office and the men of the community who would walk or drive to the store in the evenings to get their tobacco and their mail and a place to rest for a time before heading for home. The side of the pot-bellied stove with the spittoon was the focal point of the store and the store was the focal point of the community, as were many of the local general stores.

The Harrison General Store in Forks dated to about 1901, and the post office within the original 20 x 24 foot building measured something like six by eight feet. On the left as one entered from the front porch with its pitchforks, hoes and chicken wire was the glass-enclosed cigar case and beside it was the candy case, using the theory that if a father bought a cigar he could hardly turn down little Lester and his sweet tooth. The store was typical for local general stores. One entered by double doors that were glass paneled.

Glass-enclosed showcases lined the walls on either side of the store.
Counters that were used for cutting and weighing extended toward the rear of the store and shelves were everywhere. The store sold the essentials: muslins, gingham, calico, men's long underwear for the winter and "long-johns" for summer.

Lydia Pinkham and Carter's Little Liver Pills were favorites in the drug department and Arbuckle's coffee and bags of table salt and rat cheese highlighted the grocery part and boxes of nails and bamboo fishing poles and large cakes of ice could be found elsewhere in the store.

Within a few years of its construction, a 30-foot extension to the store was built and it housed the men's work clothes and farm boots.

Even the loft housed locally grown items like walnuts and chestnuts drying in the heat, and dangling from the ceiling under the loft hung lanterns and baskets and oil cans.

Our area is lucky to have the history of the store recorded in the book the Life and Times of A Country Merchant by Emma Harrison Burrus, which she published in 1979, as a reference to Rush Harrison's General Store, later owned by Neil S. Harrison.

Laubach General Store

(now closed)

Laubach, PA

Dr. David Laubach fondly recalled some history of his father's store from about 1944 when he first started working at the store until the early Sixties when it closed. The Laubach Store was on what is now known as Camp Lavigne Road in what was then called Laubach, PA, consisting of one general store that at one time contained a post office, a couple of houses and at the foot of the hill East of the store a former railroad stop on the Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad known as Laubach's Station. Many in the area still refer to the area as Guava, the name of a post office at that location. The area was named for Andrew Laubach who became the first post master in 1882.

"My Dad's store still had some post office stuff we used to play with," David recalls, "but the post office died with the train."

David can still picture "the bench in front and the bench in the store where the same guys (always guys) hung out every night until closing time" at 8:30 or 9. David remembers "the scroll desk where my dad sat when he wasn't waiting on someone, the bills were nicely organized; some of them were graying and crackly because they went back to my great grandfather Andrew's day." The generations of Laubachs who owned the store gave credit, or as David called it "early welfare," to people who were out of both work and luck.

A work week at the store was rather structured. Joe Laubach, David's father, took orders on Tuesday, in some cases by phone, but mostly by actually going to houses where the women would say what they wanted. Joe and David got the old truck--we are talking a truck that seemed to go back to the 1930s--and deliver on Wednesday. Baker's meat plant in Millville delivered meat on Thursday. Hurl Hess delivered vegetables and fruit the same day. Peters Meats of Williamsport delivered bacon and ham. Letterman's from Bloomsburg delivered and Pennsupreme Ice Cream truck brought the "great big containers for cones." A candy dealer quickly made his rounds, while retailing the "penny candy was the biggest pain as people would take their time getting a variety while you were bent over the case." David remembers the back-breaking work of picking pecks of potatoes which Hurl Hess brought in huge bags; he remembers the cheese case with the big round chunk of cheese, the coffee grinder, the food stamps during and right after the war.

David remembers delivering "to some guy in Jamison City who lived back a road," saying "we never saw him just put the groceries at the end of the road and he put the money in a mailbox." David remembers opening at 3 AM the first day of deer season and remembers getting to see Carl Furillo and other Brooklyn Dodgers that Carl would bring with him into the store, and he remembers the encroaching competition of the Benton IGA markets in the Fifties.

David remembers not only the sights of the store, but remembers that the store always smelled good because of the coffee, cheese and meat. It was a man's store, and not even David's mother or grandmother frequented the place. Women came in, but "it was mostly a man's place."

Baker's scrapple was the "best in the world," David recalls, "better than Pennsdale and better than the little shop down the road in Krumsville near where he now lives.

Stairs to the second level are at the rear of the store. This store was located where the Benton Municipal Parking Lot is now located on the East side of Main Street, and was directly across from Joe Dalto's restaurant, now the Village Ceramic shop.

The first building North of Market on the East side housed the Kozy Korner restaurant in the location where it is today on the South side of the building. On the North side of the building the United States Post Office served the local area until the post office in its current location on Third Street was dedicated April 25, 1964. The second building was a double house. On one side, Mary and Bruce Fritz lived and on the other side Skeet Miller lived. Skeet for a time was a barber with his brother, Guy, across Main Street where Dr. Hutnik now practices. Skeet later moved North on Main Street and cut hair in the building now owned by Dan Jankowski where the Coin Shop is located.

The Pennington Store was the third building North of Market Street, Benton. Adjacent, an alley cut between the Pennington Store and the Charlie Hess Meat Market. The Hotel Moses Van Campen came next. The Harv Belles General Store came next, and later that building became Buckley's Five and Dime, and then passed through ownership of Bob and Joyce Gordon, the Bankes family, Dee Wise, and the current Flower Station.

Russ Seward remembers that the garage survived until a truck came roaring down Red Rock mountain and ripped through part of the garage.

The restaurant had two large round oak tables, and there were some tables spread out in the store, so that about 20 could be served at any one time. The specialty of Zell Seward's restaurant was buckwheat cakes, unlike any we know of being sold today. They were sour! Customers would drive for miles to eat the cakes, while others felt they were too sour.

Today the corner store is operated by "Maddy" Bonham, and is a favorite stopping place to buy hoagies. The meat is fresh and carved, and their sandwiches are hugely popular. This is a favorite of the Ricketts Glen crowd.

Swisher's General Store

Route 43 between Lungerville and Beech Glen

Celebrating their 125th year of business as a country general store.

The Lancaster store succeeded, but two successive stores failed. That didn't stop Frank and his next store was in Scranton. By 1911, a $65 million dollar corporation was formed and nearly one hundred employees became millionaires. Frank W. Woolworth died in April, 1919, at the age of sixty-six.

Not all parts of Pennsylvania had the population of Lancaster, Scranton and other areas where Woolworth opened his stores. Locally, Burgess Swisher knew what people between Lungerville and Beech Glen needed, and in 1879 opened a store and post office that is still up and running 125 years later. Pensioners from the Civil War could pick up their checks, play a game or two of checkers, warm their bodies beside the pot-bellied stove, and trade some home-made items for some products of the industrial revolution. Swisher felt that if his country store didn't have it, people didn't need it!

Before he opened the store in its present location, Burgess Swisher operated a store across what was then a dirt lane from the present store. The store expanded in 1895 when his older son, Oscar, joined the business and the name of the store changed to B. Swisher & Son. Over the years, the ownership of the store has always been in the Swisher family, and the name has always reflected that fact: Burgess Swisher, B. Swisher & Son, O. M. Swisher, Swisher & Co., and Swisher's Store.

Swisher's General Store

Oscar died in 1929 and son Glenn came home from Penn State to help his mother run the store. Glen, his wife Marion and daughter Maureen ran the store until 1987. The store closed for a few years, but then reopened by daughters Maureen Swisher and Gwen Swisher Hall and her husband, John. The three run the store today, and one of the three will usually be in the store.

The store is virtually the same today as the original store was 100 years ago, although the "North Mountain" post office boxes that served the area for 34 years were removed a long time ago. The original wareroom was incorporated into store area, and in the 1940s the cinder block building was added. The second floor was once off limits to customers, but now houses antiques and business memorabilia and is open to the public.

The store is a well-preserved country store just past the termination of route 239. It is on what we call the "Beech Glen Highway," which is route 42 north, three and a half miles south of route 220.

The wheel cheese is pure Wisconsin Cheddar, the bear skin hanging over the counter is real, and yes, that is a real butter churn and yes, many of the items for sale are really resting on hundred-year-old articles. Gwen Swisher Hall

The 100 pound bags of flour and sugar are gone but the sights and smells of a genuine country store remain. There is a stiff walk up concrete steps to get into the store, then you'll walk on and under old wood with real character. The store is open in the winter from 9 to 6 on Saturdays and 12 to 6 on Sundays. Other times can be arranged by appointment. Hours are more generous in other times of the year.

W. T. Pease

(No longer in business)