Within the winding backroads of America lie the silent remnants of a bygone era — the old general stores that once served as the heart of small-town life. These structures are more than just dilapidated buildings; they are tangible ghosts of local commerce, community life, and a slower, more self-sufficient way of living that has long since faded into memory.
Mahurin’s General Store, Grayson County, KY, is a colorful old store that served it’s community from the early 1930s until about 1980. (Photos: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
These stores were not merely places to buy goods, gas, hardware, and farm supplies. They were social hubs. The general store was often the primary point of contact with the outside world — a place where news was exchanged, gossip was traded, and essentials were secured. Many also contained a United States Post Office, where mail could be picked up or sent. Few of these stores still survive as viable businesses, and are a rare treat to come across.
Doolin’s Country Store, Pleasant Ridge, Ohio County, is a rare example of a thriving general store in rural Kentucky. (Photos: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
I remember Jimmy Hopwood’s old store, now gone, in the small community of Kaler, Graves County, KY. It, like so many other country stores of it’s time had a concrete floor and a pot-bellied wood stove. Old men in overalls would sit around the warm fire in winter and talk about everyday county life, farming, their families, or the weather. My dad would take a seat with them in an old ladder-back, cane bottom chair and listen to their country wisdom, after handing each of us kids a quarter. With it, we were able to pay for a candy bar and a bottled pop. By about 1970, or so, the old store had outlived its usefulness and disappeared, but I still remember what it looked like.
Country stores like these were important social hubs for their communities. L to R: CJ’s Country Store, Greenville, Monroe County, WV; Tanner’s Store, Brodnax, Brunswick County, VA; Zenith General Store, Zenith, Monroe County, WV. (Photos: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
As times changed and moved away from farm life, and people traveled greater distances for work, shopping, banking and other everyday affairs, the old general stores gradually lost their importance in community life. Supermarkets and larger chain stores took their place. While not as personal, they offering goods and services, not available in the small town stores, often at lower prices.
A replica of the Shain Young and Company store was built as a tribute to the original store that stood on the site, Pine Knob, Grayson County, KY. Here. Amish women walk past the recreation. (Photo: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
Silver City General Store, Silver City, Butler County, KY. (Photo: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
Every tiny town had a general store, some more then one. Today many of the old buildings still remain along backroads and other highways. They stand weathered and exposed to the elements. Old wood frames sag under the weight of decades, faded signage whispers of familiar and forgotten names, and broken windows stare out blankly at the unchanging landscape. They serve as a reminder that much of our country’s history resides in the quiet corners of rural America.
More old country stores L to R: Bob & Bob Speleo-General Store, Sinks Grove, Monroe County, WV; Second Creek General Store, Second Creek, Monroe County, WV; Carpenter’s Grocery, Patterson, Wythe County, VA; Rock Creek Genera Store, Rock Creek, Monroe County, WV; Allen’s Grocery, Banock, Butler County, KY; Old Harvey Store, Rock Camp, Monroe County, WV; John L. Thomas General Store, Logansport, Butler County, KY; and Archie McDaniels’s Store, Rosine, Ohio County, KY. (Photos: Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
Over the years, I’ve taken photographs of many old country stores. They’re all different with their own story and history, but all carry the same general theme of a time when rural communities were much simpler than today.
Bill Monroe (left) with brother, Charlie, 1936 (Public Domain).
Back in the days of my childhood In the evening when everything was still I used to sit and listen to the foxhounds With my dad in the old Kentucky hills
I’m on my way back to the old home The road winds on up the hill But there’s no light in the window That shined long ago where I live
Soon my childhood days were over I had to leave my old home For dad and mother were called to heaven I’s left in this world all alone
Plaque honoring Bill Monroe on the Rosine Barn Jamboree, Rosine, KY. (Photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads).
High in the hills of old Kentucky Stands the fondest spot in my memory I’m on my way back to the old home The light in the window I long to see
It was a cold, rainy January day and I hoped the rain would subside long enough for me to take a few pictures of the Bill Monroe Homeplace on Jerusalem Ridge, just outside of Rosine, Ohio County, Kentucky. I was meeting with Marty Hays, whose wife, Robin, is the official caretaker of the Homeplace. They work together to keep the property in top shape for visitors and activities on the property, including concerts and events, and help keep the history and heritage of Bill Monroe and his family alive.
Old farm equipment on the Bill Monroe Homeplace (Photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads).
Marty, a musician himself, showed me through the house, and afterward, we sat down and talked about Bill Monroe, his early life and family, his rise to fame, and the area’s musical heritage. I learned that Bill was born in a log cabin on the property in 1911. It burned when he was five, and the current house was built a short time later. It’s been called “the most musical home in America.”
A sign in front of the Monroe Home explains the Monroe musical heritage. (photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads).
Not only was the house the home to Bill Monroe, but also his two musician brothers, Charlie and Birch. A sign on the property informs us that “After the farm Chores were done, the home was a magnet that drew local traditional musicians including Bill’s legendary Uncle Pen. In the summer the music and dancing took place on the porch or in the yard. In the cooler months furniture was moved outside and square dances were held in the home.”
Portrait of Bill Monroe playing his mandolin by Rosine native Malissa Beatty hangs above a fireplace in the homeplace. (Photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads).
Bill, the youngest of eight children, who in his youth would play music with his brothers Charlie and Birch, got to play the mandolin, as the older brothers already had dibs on the guitar and fiddle. It became his trademark instrument, and as he rose in the ranks of country music, he defined his style by playing the mandolin as lead instrument. Major influences for Monroe were his mother, Malissa, who played the fiddle and sang, and her brother, Pendleton “Uncle Pen” Vandiver. His mother died in 1921 and following the death of his father in 1928, Bill moved in with his Uncle Pen, as his siblings had already moved from the homeplace. Bill would often accompany his Uncle Pen who was a well-known fiddle player in the area, to dances and events where he got a chance to play and learn from the older man. In 1950, Monroe recorded the song “Uncle Pen,” as a tribute to his uncle. Over they years, it has been recorded by other country artists, including Porter Wagoner (1956) and Ricky Scaggs (1984), among others.
Portrait of Uncle Penn by Kentucky artist Malissa Beatty above a fireplace in Bill’s parents’ bedroom in the homeplace. (Photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
Arnold Shultz (Wikipedia, Fair use).
Another major influence was Arnold Shultz, an African American man, born in Ohio County into a family of traveling musicians. He gave Bill the chance to play his first paid musical job, with Shultz playing fiddle and Monroe playing guitar. Shultz developed a jazzy, thumb-style guitar picking method that evolved into a Kentucky style that was adapted by Merle Travis, Doc Watson and Chet Atkins. He died in 1931 and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of fame last year (2025).
Birch Monroe at Bill Monroe’s Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson, Kentucky, August 1972. (Photo by Carl Fleischhauer, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 license).
In 1929 Bill left his Uncle Pen’s cabin and headed to East Chicago, Indiana to work with his brothers at the Sinclair Oil Refinery, He worked there until 1934, mainly in the barrel house, washing and loading empty oil barrels. During that time, he continued playing music with his brothers and another musician, Larry Moore, at local venues and dances, as The Monroe Brothers. After a while, Birch and Moore left the group, and continued as a duo. They would go on to earn spots on several local radio stations, and then eventually nationwide. RCA Victor signed the Monroe Brothers to a recording contract in 1936. “What Would You Give in Exchange For Your Soul?” became their first hit single, and they went on to record some 60 tracks for Victor’s Bluebird label in the next couple of years.
The Monroe Brothers disbanded in 1938 and Charlie and Bill each went their own way. The following year Bill auditioned for The Grand Ole Opry and won a regular spot by singing Jimmie Rodgers’s “Mule Skinner Blues,” which he recorded in 1940 with his newly formed Blue Grass Boys. The addition of banjo player “Davis “Stringbean” Akeman, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, along with others, over the next few years, helped create a sound which characterized Bluegrass music.
Over a long career, Bill Monroe became known as the “Father of Bluegrass.” A live album in 1989, celebrated his 50th year with the Grand Ole Opry.
The Rosine Barn Jamboree, Rosine, Ohio County, KY. honors Bill Monroe and carries on his musical tradition! (Photo by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads)
Ohio County and the Rosine community are visibly proud of their native son, who left a musical legacy and the Bluegrass genre to the world. There’s a lot more that could be said, but that would take a book. Rosine, the small town that Bill claimed as home, has a museum dedicated to him. There’s the Rosine Barn Jamboree, where musicians gather to carry on his tradition of country music, and the church where his funeral was held in 1996. He is buried in the Rosine Cemetery. The Monroe Homeplace was restored by the Bill Monroe Foundation in 2001 and is open to the public March through November. More information is available on the Bill Monroe Homeplace website.
From top left: Monroe’s parent’s bedroom in the Homeplace; quilt made by a fan honoring Monroe’s music: Monroe’s sisters’ bedroom; Bill Monroe’s bedroom; the Homeplace kitchen; the former Rosine Methodist Church, where Monroe sang in the choir. His funeral was held there in 1996; Bill Monroe’s grave in Rosine Cemetery: Bill Monroe Museum in Rosine. (All photos by Bob Bell/Driving Backroads).
On a short weekend drive through Muhlenberg County, KY, we discovered Paradise Park, a community spot in Powderly, between Central City and Greenville. It’s an outdoor museum, recreating a coal mining town from the first half of the 20th century, a tribute to the area’s mining and music heritage.
Farmers Market at Paradise Park
It was a chilly Sunday afternoon about a week before Christmas. In the center of the parking area is a farmers’ market, which the sign noted opens in April and is active through most of October. The skies were overcast, and there wasn’t a lot of activity, other than a few children and their parents milling into a restored schoolhouse to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. It was the Spring Ridge School, the oldest two-room schoolhouse in Kentucky, dating to 1935, and recently relocated to the park, where it was lovingly restored.
Spring Ridge School (1935), oldest two-room schoolhouse in Kentucky.
After we walked our dogs, Witney, Aubrey and Maddy, I got my camera bag out of the backseat and walked around the outdoor museum, which includes the boyhood home of country singer Merle Travis, which was relocated to the site from nearby Rosewood. I’m a long time fam of old country music, and recognized the name instantly. Travis may be best remembered for his classic song “Sixteen Tons,” about a coal miner, and life in and around the Rosewood coal mines. It was first released in 1947 by Capitol on Travis’s album “Folk Songs of the Hills.” The song became a gold record.
Merle Travis boyhood home (above and left)
Travis’s boyhood home was a small, white frame house like many others still in use and lining the streets of small towns in Muhlenberg County. Another home relocated to the park is a shotgun home, so called because of it’s long and narrow build. A sign notes that it was A Duncan Mine home, which would have been rented to a miner and his family, typical of such operations. There would have been lines of these homes side by side to serve a workforce in a mining community.
Shotgun style home once owned by Duncan Coal Company.
It was a tough life for miners and there no way out for many, as the mine companies owned the homes and paid in their own scrip, which could be used only in their company stores, which offered staples and basic necessities, but little else. The United Mine Workers Union was eventually able to end the economic oppression and control. Company stores, mine owned housing and a scrip system of payment came to end, and working conditions, mine safety and collective bargaining became major concerns.
Merle Travis’s album Folk Songs of the Hills (Fair Use, Wikipedia).
“You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store” (From Merle Travis’ song Sixteen Tons)
As I walked along the paved path, I came across the Belton Mercantile Company, obviously an old company store. Ghost ads painted on the front of the building, barely readable, advertised Golden Leaf Flour, a staple that would have come in 25 pound bags, and was produced in mills at Owensboro, KY.
A ghost ad painted on the old Belton Mercantile Company company store is barely readable.
Entrance to the old company store.
I ended my brief tour by walking across a wooden bridge to an old two room dogtrot log cabin, which remains unrestored. I put an ultrawide angle lens and external viewfinder on my digital rangefinder and snapped a few photos inside an out, and wandered back across the bridge and to the truck, shooting a nativity scene along the way.
Unrestored dogtrot log cabin at Paradise Park
I’ll be back this spring for the farmers’ market, and to shoot more photos of the outdoor museum when leaves fill the tree branches and provide shade along the narrow walkways. I wish more communities would develop historical themed parks like this one, which is both an educational experience and a tribute to the heritage of the county, with playgrounds for children, as well.
