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Part store, part museum, Rocky Top has a little bit of everything
Believe it or not, picturesque Roane County in East Tennessee is home to the nation’s largest neutron science project, the world’s fastest computer and a host of high-tech start-up companies that sprang from research and development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – also located in Roane County.
But pull up in front of Rocky Top General Store, a few miles down the road in Harriman, and all that high technology might as well be worlds away. In fact, eyeing the worn plank floors and old tools and farm equipment lining the walls, visitors to the store might even forget what century it is.
That’s fine with owner David Webb, who opened the store in 1959. He and his wife, Mildred, have lived in Harriman all their lives, and the Webbs help keep simplicity and friendliness a top priority by greeting every patron with a bag of fresh-popped popcorn and a dose of Southern hospitality. His establishment outfits rural customers with everything they need for life on the farm and entices tourists with handmade gifts and unique, made-in-Tennessee products.
“We’ve got farm supplies, poultry supplies, hardware, plumbing, appliances, furniture, stove pipe,” Webb says. “And we’ve got gifts, old-timey stick candy, jams and jellies, quilts, wagons, cast-iron cookware – ‘general store’ about says it all.”
In addition to store inventory, Webb’s collection of vintage memorabilia has turned Rocky Top into something of a museum. Authentic Radio Flyer wagons are available for purchase, and there’s even an old-fashioned soda pop machine that sells Coca-Cola in glass bottles. Old sleds, wood cookstoves, tin signs, scales, printing presses and musical instruments make the place worth seeing whether you’re shopping or not.
“We have a lot of items on display that aren’t for sale,” Webb explains. “I really like the old tools. I’ve got some old singletrees and old horse-drawn plows that were made in Harriman. Over the years, as I found things, I would buy them. Then people got to where they’d just give things to us to add to our display.”
That includes an old sheriff’s car and an antique fire truck out in front of the store, where an old-time façade dresses up the wire shed. Webb says his next addition will be modeled after an old-fashioned town square.
“Now all we need is a post office,” he adds.
But contrary to appearances, neither Webb nor Rocky Top General Store is stuck in the past. Where a mail-order catalog used to go out to customers far and wide, now everything from chicken wire, rabbit feed, cages, traps and leg bands to Radio Flyer wagons, grandfather clocks, how-to books, rocking chairs, ceramic dolls and apple peelers can be ordered online via the store’s Web site at www.rockytopgen.com.
Story by Carol Cowan
