Gone Country

By Lois Carol Wheatley
Special to the Herald Courier
Published: September 3, 2008

General Store Is A Gathering Place

TODD, N.C. – When the National Geographic cameras rolled in, Todd General Store won its own special place on the world map. Not for the first time.
Those cameras rode the coattails of a PBS special program highlighting the charming little country store near Boone, N.C. that does it all – local music and artwork, storytellers and authors, handmade crafts and homecooked meals.
PBS got the story from the New York Times. There’s an excerpt of that article on the store’s Web site at http://www.toddgeneralstore.com. Store owners Bob and Gini Mann are practically national celebrities, due to so many key ingredients they’ve stirred into the standard quaint-old-country-store mix.
“We do storytelling on Tuesday nights at six o’clock through Halloween,” said Gini Mann. “We do dinner at six and bluegrass at seven every Friday night from now until New Year’s. It is a band every week, but if you are a musician, you are welcome to come and bring your instrument and join in. The bands love it when you join in.”
On Saturday afternoons, the store hosts an author and an artist, and on Saturday nights, it’s likely to be another live band.
“Which is one of the reasons National Geographic picked us up,” she said. “They told us we’re the only place in the country that does all four Appalachian cultures in one location.”
If they’re just counting music, art, literature and storytelling, they haven’t looked at the menu.
“I have flash-frozen fresh mahi. My crabcakes are outstanding, and my chicken salad is truly outstanding. We do have a lot of vegetarians, and I also cater to people who need a gluten-free menu,” Mann said. “That’s getting hot in America right now. About 20 percent of the populace is gluten allergic.”
The store shuts down in January and February, so the Manns can, among several other things, go on a buying spree.
“I handpick every piece in the store,” Mann said. “A lot is locally made, but at the very least it is handmade in America. It is difficult to get people doing what they used to do.”
Consequently, the cobalt blue salt-glazed pottery is from the Amish country. The nautical stuff is brought in from the coast.
“A lot of my wood products are made locally, and the furniture is made just off the mountain,” Mann said. “I try to have North Carolina products.”
The store was always something of a community center, but it had certainly seen better days when the Manns acquired it in 2003.
“A couple weeks after we bought the store, the deli fell through the floor, and we had to completely gut and renovate,” she said. “The back deck and the doorway weren’t here at all when we bought the store.”
She swears that Todd was once the largest town in Watauga and Ashe counties, a concept hard to embrace in its present rural state.
When the store was built in 1914 by Walter and Monroe Cook, it was in anticipation of the Norfolk & Western “Virginia Creeper” Railroad coming to town. Todd, N.C. was the end of the line, the last of 13 stops on the run from Abingdon, Va. For decades, the W.G. Cook Store sat at the center of a boom town that grew up around the railroad and lumber industries.
“There used to be banks, a Ford assembly plant, a hotel, a couple doctors and dentists,” she said. “The 1940 flood washed out the railroad, and it sort of ended that. But the problems started before then, during the war and the depression. The flood was just the final straw.”
A bike trail now runs along the old railroad bed, a flat thoroughfare that easily winds through the mountain countryside following a scenic river. Even casual bikers can do the 30-mile run to the Virginia border, this leg being the southernmost end of the Virginia Creeper Trail.
Todd’s outdoor outfitter, Rivergirl Fishing Company, rents bikes as well as kayaks and rafts, and teaches fly-fishing to the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to the town.
History buffs also like to poke around the old buildings of Todd and look into the several old train cars still on display.
“If you go down Railroad Grade Road, you can still see some of the old trestles standing,” Mann said.
On Sept. 13, the Third Annual International Puppet Festival will be hosted by the nearby Elkland Art Center. On Oct. 4, Todd’s General Store will bring in the Ashe County Humane Society for an animal puppet show. On Oct. 11, the Ruritans will put on a huge craft fair directly across the street from the store, in the Annie and Robert Cook Park
“Just a lot of nifty stuff going on,” Mann said. “We basically have two floors of antiques, a lot of jams, jellies and preserves, a full restaurant, front and back deck dining and a lot of happy followers.”

IF YOU GO
It might be wise to call ahead, at (336) 877-1067, to be sure the store is open, and nothing like a Hollywood film crew is on its busy schedule. Todd General Store is located at 3866 Railroad Grade Road in Todd, just off Highway 194.

SATURDAY AUTHORS, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Oct. 18: Rose Senehi, regional romantic suspense

TUESDAY STORYTELLERS, 6 p.m.
Sept. 9: Orville Hicks
Sept. 16: Doyle Pace
Sept. 23: Sherry Boone
Sept. 30: John Ashburn
Oct. 7: Terry Rollins
Oct. 14: Orville Hicks
Oct. 21: Charlotte Ross
Oct. 28: Dianne Hackworth