Mast General Store & Crab Orchard Falls

Monday August 15, 2022                                             Most Recent Posts:
Bear Den Family Campground                  Crabtree Falls & Little Switzerland
MP 324 Blue Ridge Parkway                    Busy Day in Western North Carolina
Spruce Pine North Carolina

My last post was from Friday when I also went to a store and a falls which had Crabtree in its name.  I usually don’t go anywhere on the week-ends because I’m allergic to crowds of people.  So I spent those two days sitting outside under my awning reading The Deception of Harriet Fleet and cooking some meals to eat next week so it’s easier when I come home from hiking and I’m not tempted to eat out.  Cooking for one is too difficult so it’s easier to make something for four and eat leftovers all week. 

Luckily there is very nice hiking right here from the campground if I’m willing to do the same trails multiple times which I find not a problem since the park has two very nice waterfalls to visit.  Also in the 400 acres and on the other side of the campground are second homes and rental units which a friend of mine is going to be staying in later in the week.  Interesting to hike over there and look.

It rained this morning so I got a late start for my drive to Mast General Store which is apparently very famous in North Carolina.  It was opened in 1883 by Henry Taylor.  In 1897 W.W. Mast bought a half interest in it and it was renamed Taylor and Mast General Store. In 1913 Mast bought Taylor out and the store has been Mast General Store ever since.  For the next 60 years it was owned and operated by the Mast Family. 

In the early 1970’s it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the best remaining examples of an old country general store.  During that time it was sold out of the Mast Family and finally closed in the winter of 1977.  But not for long.  In 1980 it was purchased by John and Faye Cooper who moved into the 2nd and 3rd floors and reopened the store.  I was really happy to hear that in 1996 it became an employee-owned company.  No wonder everyone there was so nice and looked so happy.

Since then, the store has grown into a family of stores with this one in historic Valle Crucis, North Carolina as the flag ship.  The Mast Store Annex is just down the road 2/10th of a mile – walking distance and there are now 9 more Mast Stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.  And of course on line.  The mileage signs show how far from the flag ship to the other stores.

Because of the number of visitors to this once little country store, you no longer enter from the front.   I parked in the back in the large lot but walked around to get a good look at the front and then walked back along the side where I saw the mileage signs, the old Esso gas sign and the post office town name.

The entrance in the back has nice old rocking chairs for relaxing and drinking an old timey soda like Grape Nehi.

There are barrels of what used to be penny candy.  Now it’s by the pound.  But there are only a few barrels here.  Many many more in the annex.

I’m told in the winter the tourists thin out and locals come to sit by the wood/tin stove and play checkers.  Real people, not just a stage set.  I remember clearly the Batesville store which was the farm’s local country store and older than Mast as it was opened in 1880.   It was and is just down the road about 5 miles from us in the 70’s when we first bought the farm.  It too had a wood stove and a checkerboard and chairs and there were always men sitting around smoking pipes and cigarettes.  The store stocked staples and no bread but white.  But I baked 6 loaves of wheat bread every Monday so we were set for the sandwiches we all ate for lunch.

The wall of mailboxes brings back memories too.  It is still the Valle Crucis, North Carolina post office.  Our country store had mailboxes and a post office inside for Batesville Virginia but we were far enough away that we had a mailbox at the end of the farm lane.  Although in the 80’, s I founded an environmental group called The Blue Ridge Earth Alliance and its address was a PO box there in Batesville.

Yes, we had ceiling fans and uncovered wooden floors and ceilings.  But no stairs going up.  This is a much bigger store than ours.  I wonder if the community was much bigger then than now.  Sweet memories for me.

Lots of touristy things for sale here.  I definitely second this sentiment.

I assume this is reproduction Fiesta Ware.  So funny that it used to come in boxes of laundry detergent.  I love the colors.   This Nana could have used the sign back in the days when she cooked 7 days a week.

I don’t remember seeing a wooden coffin for sale in our store but then we were there in the 70’s not the early part of the century when probably they did sell coffins.   Pretty sure you can’t buy this today and my closer picture didn’t come out well but it has rope handles on the side.

The sign above it says “this coffin is an example of a simple coffin that the store carried in the early 20th century.  Residents could order one completely built or in pieces and have it built locally.   I would think most folks in rural North Carolina in that time would have trees they could cut and make their own rather than the money for a “store bought” one.

Further outside in the back near the parking lot are other buildings.

For whatever reason, I took no pictures inside this one which held sports equipment. 

Or inside  this one which once was the Valle Crucis Academy built in 1907 by the citizens of Valle Crucis.  Originally it housed grades 1 through high school.  Have you ever wondered if education would be better and students more interested if we had continued the very small, very neighborhood schools.   But $$$$ talks and small schools, better or not, are not cost effective.  Or so they say.   I digress.

Later it was used as a gym for the newbigger school and in the 60’s became a storage house for tobacco until Mr. Mast bought it.  It has survived 3 moves and 2 major floods to become part of the Mast General store.

The entry way has artifacts and the interior school room has clothing and LOTS of on sale brand named shoes.  Mostly running/walking/hiking.

I then strolled down to the Annex where I could walk right in the front door and there were a couple of folks sitting on the porch.

The Mast Store Annex was originally a competing country store built in 1909 but the sign here says it was formerly the Valley Crucis Company Store.   Whatever that means.

I’m not much of a shopper unless forced  and two Mast Generals just about did me in.  But I did enjoy these signs.  IF I had not given up acquiring non essentials, I would like the hiking sign,  my book club companion Laurie could use the cat one and being an old grown up hippie I just laughed at the last one.

MANY barrels of candy here too.

Lots of it was old timey candy and things I’d never heard of.  I broke down and bought a 1/2 pound which I think with tax was over $6.   No more penny candy.

Before starting on the candy it was time to get some exercise.   I headed for Crab Apple Falls which is on the grounds of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross founded in 1895 on the site of Valle Crucis Episcopal Mission established in 1842.  The Episcopal missionaries seem to have been all over the mountains as they have sites in Shenandoah National Park as well.

I’m not sure if the original mission is restored or rebuilt but it is obviously strikingly different from today’s church.

Behind the church is the Valley Crucis Conference Center an outreach of the church.  The trail head is just beyond it.  At the start of the trail I was very happy to see these signs indicating that they protect their hemlock trees since without spraying the trees will die from 4 to 10 after being discovered by the exotic invasive wooly adelgid.

From here, the trail became rooty and narrow as it headed down hill.

Eventually there was a very nice boardwalk and steps just next to the falls.  I assume the church and conference center maintain it and I wish they had had a donation jar to which I would have contributed.  

I’ll post some falls pictures first though I hardly glanced at them given the show that was going on down on the rocks.

Not sure what kind of snake this is but he’s caught a fish and spends at least 15 minutes eating it while a group of us watch

Here’s a video if you want to see him in action.

After a while of watching him flip it over and around and try to get it in position, I was feeling pretty sorry for the fish and turned my attention back to the lovely falls.

I’ll skip the pictures of him finally getting the fish turned around and starting down his throat.  He is of course eating it whole.

Once he could close his mouth completely he slithered off the rock, into the falls pool and disappeared.

One last look at the falls and I headed out.  There were 8 or so people here by this time so there would be no communing with the natural world.

What a surprise this turned out to be.  As I looked back I realized that I never know what I might find on any hike and that is one of the joys.