Stopping at Thomas Grocery in Glen Ayre is like stepping back in time.
In one form or another, it has been serving the community since 1929. It is a time capsule of sorts.
Shelving on the walls goes back to the original store. The wooden plank floor is the same one folks walked on back in the days of prohibition.
Although the large glass display counter that held jars of penny candy is long gone, there is still that feeling of going back to an era where everyone seemed to know everyone else.
There is a slatted bench out front where one can often see people sit, sipping a cold drink, eating a Moon Pie and engaging in conversation.
Inside, a group of chairs sits in front of the weathered checkout counter. People still gather to sit a spell and share the news.
Tourists visiting Roan Mountain often stop to take photographs. To the locals, it’s not a tourist attraction, but an integral part of the community.
There was a time when Mitchell County was alive with small stores. Not to be confused with today’s quick stop or gas-and-go establishments, these stores were focal points of the community.
Red Hill, Buladean, Ledger and Tipton Hill all had stores that sold not only groceries but feed, sundries and clothing. Cane Creek had multiple stores and gathering places where people not only traded goods but shared stories of their lives.
Thomas Grocery is one of the few that remains. Sitting at the corner of Highway 261 and Green Creek Road, it opens every day of the year around 8 a.m.
It closes in the summer around 7:30 p.m. There is not a day it closes— Christmas or Thanksgiving, New Year’s or Memorial Day, it doesn’t matter. The store, which also is a gas station, is open.
“Up until the late 60s we had a few people that still came down on horses to get their goods,” said Dwight Thomas, who some locals hail the Mayor of Glen Ayre.
Thomas and his wife Kitty have owned and run the store since 1983 when they inherited it from Dwight’s mother, Hattie Thomas. She had run the store with her husband Floyd Thomas until his death n 1980.
Just north of the current store is a vacant building where Hattie’s father W. F. Green had a general store. Dwight’s family had the current location as things turned out, Hattie and Floyd married and W.F. decided to open a store in Spruce Pine thereby opening up what was the consolidation of the two stores into the current location.
When Dwight and Kitty inherited the store, Dwight was a long-distance trucker picking up produce in southern Florida and delivering it to wholesale distributors in Colombia, South Carolina and Charlotte.
“Back then, Kitty had to run the store,” he said. ”She had a lot of good help. Natalie Green, Rachel Davis, Jill Sullivan and Rita McKinney were all a big part of keeping things going.”
When Floyd and Hattie ran the store, they supplemented their income with proceeds from an apple orchard just down the road from the store on Green Creek. Today, the Thomas family raises cattle as well as Christmas trees.
It’s an extended family operation with Kitty and Dwight’s sons Joe (58) and Greg (50) continuing the family legacy.
Joe’s wife Anne also plays an important part in the operation having done all the ordering of goods for the past 20 years as well as being a regular presence in the store. Anne met her husband when she would come back and visit her mom, Joyce.
At the time, Anne was living in Winston Salem but the story runs that Joyce and Kitty together played matchmakers, thinking Joe and Anne would make a good couple.
“I didn’t take to him at first,” Anne said smiling. “But, during the blizzard of 93, he had to do some deliveries for the store and I sort of warmed up to him.”
Kitty has suffered some health issues and no longer works in the store but she is still there most days with Dwight, greeting folks. Locals share smiles with her.
It seems everyone that stops in gives her a hug of some sort.
Mickey Buchanan lives a little more than a stone’s throw from Thomas Grocery. He is a regular, almost daily visitor. Now in his early 60s, he has fond memories of the store from his childhood.
“I remember going in there and buying candy from Dwight’s mom,” Buchanan said. “Good memories. I love that I can take my grandchildren in that same store and buy candy and share the store and Dwight and Kitty with them.
“It’s like a family to me. Dwight, Kitty and all of them. I can’t imagine what it would be like around here without this store.”
That’s a thought echoed by most folks who live in Glen Ayre.
Dwight says he intends to keep it open until “he can’t.”
“It’s different now,” he said. “But I enjoy being around people. I’ll be in this store as long as I can go. When I can’t, I hope the boys keep it running.”
Dwight’s son Greg said that’s the plan.
“As long as Joe and I are able, this store will be here,” Greg said.