Pekin Furniture Co

The previous owner of the house stopped by on Friday, and I had just gotten home from grocery shopping. Good thing hubby is a good host. He had put on a pot of water and offered her some hot tea. She brought with her some old articles and cutouts about the area. One of them in particular caught my eye.

(meanwhile...just know that I've attempted to get up, go get the article from the kitchen, and have managed to get sidetracked at least four times) (that said, I still don't have it. Must go get it now, focus, focus, focus! (must be fieldmouseitis again...)).

This one caught my eye.

M.E. SHAMBURGER W.H. USSERY ROBERT F. BOWLES

PEKIN STORE COMPANY

ROBERT F. BOWLES, MANAGER

DEALERS IN

GENERAL MERCHANDISE

FREIGHT AND EXPRESS OFFICE:

MOUNT GILEAD, N.C.

PEKIN, N.C., July 30 1914

I'm fascinated. Where was this store? Did it burn down? What did they have in there? Dry goods? Smoked meat? Nails? Tobacco? Back then everyone had their own cow, or goat, for milk, so there was no "running to the store" to pick up a gallon of milk. And at over $4.00 a gallon, who wants to anymore.

I paid our property taxes recently. The description of the parcel just said "Dillon Land". Rumor has it this property was sold for a whopping $600 in the 1930's. The house was only about 40 years old then.

I'm always curious when I see a deep nick or scratch in the floor or walls of this old heartpine hand-hewn house. Who did that? Was it "Pa" that dropped a hammer on the floor? Or Ma with the stove poker? There were once four fireplaces in this house. The remaining one, I'm told by my husband somberly, must come down and be rebuilt. It's painful to think of, and I am not the one who will be doing any hard labor. It's just...history. The bricks are HUGE! On one side of said fireplace the opening has been bricked in, and I kid you not, the bricks are less than half the size of the original fire-brick. The old ones crumble easy, and in my little boy's room, if you put your hand next to the right lower side, you can feel a draft. It's the oddest thing. And when it's barely 15 degrees outside, not so odd as annoying.

Anyways, about the title of this post. Speaking of old houses, and history; my husband is tearing down a house that was probably built prior to 1920 and is reclaiming any useable material from it. The picture above is what he's done with some of the interior heart pine wall boards. It has been sold, even before it was finished. Which brings me to, once again, the title of this post. I think Pekin Furniture Co., Est. 2008 has been born.