As you partake of your Southern style plowman's lunch, let your eyes also feast on the multitudinous amount of old timey "stuff" available for sale at Washburn. Wash down the eats with a cold, bottled Blenheim ginger ale or Cheerwine. Want some lunch at Washburn? Grab a can of beanie weenies or make your own sandwich from cold cuts and loaf bread. Today, Washburn General Store operates as a business, local hangout, and tourist attraction- pretty much in that order. It began as a tavern, inn, and mercantile store that served stagecoaches traveling between Rutherford and Lincoln counties. The Store's original building actually stood on the other side of the Washburn's Crossroads to its current home. It's the fourth building the business has been in. The store's present location opened in the late 1920s. Slate for the roof set Washburn back $226 and maple flooring another $117. Materials for the massive Tuscan columns on the front porch cost $240. A Washburn ledger reveals that it cost $8,005 to build the house. In 1914, Nollie Washburn traveled to Belmont and bought a copy of the Hand House blueprints for two dollars. The Washburn family mansion-house located across the street from the store has a twin in Belmont, the Albert Hand House at 211 N. The other structures include several rental houses, a funeral home, a 1915 powerhouse, and a pump house. The National Department of the Interior inducted the General Store, the family mansion, a classic wooden barn built in 1915, and several other buildings as a historic district in 2002. It was first established in 1831 as a tavern on the Lincoln-Rutherford counties stagecoach line by Benjamin Washburn, and has been handed down through brothers and sons to his current owner great-great nephew Edward Nollie Washburn III. Washburn General Store is the oldest, continuously operating, family owned, retail business in North Carolina. If you want to see what a community dry goods and hardware store looked like 100 or more years ago, then you need to hop in your car and head for Washburn General Store near Bostic in Rutherford County. Jada Walker (light blue shirt), Casee Freshour (camo hat, store manager), Addie Harris (middle, black shirt), Ann Washburn Hutchins (Red shirt, she is Edward and Catherine's These fine ladies keep Washburn General Store running like a well-oiled machine.
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