Step Back In Time At Palmer's Store

BY JIMMY DEAN, Feature Writer, The Guardian-Journal

 

 

            There’s a time machine between Summerfield and Antioch: Palmer’s Store. If you want to go back in time and glimpse the first half of the 1900s, visit C. V. Palmer, Jr., at Palmer’s Store.

     My visit begins at 7:50 a.m. This store may be as well protected as Fort Knox, what with iron gates and bars and alarms and other security stuff. Once we get in, it becomes 1950’ish again. Opened in 1916 by  C. V. Palmer, Sr., Palmer’s Store has been around almost 90 years.

     Now operated by C. V. Palmer, Jr., the store handled general merchandise for 54 years. Then the business began a shift from general merchandise to gun sales, gun repair, and gun-related services and products.

     “We took care of farmers in this area for many, many years providing their staples and anything else they needed from the spring until the fall when the crops came in. Then they’d settle up the bill,” says Palmer. He goes on, “But that’s all changed. Things are different now what with the discount stores. The little guy just can’t compete.” Many small businesses do not survive without creating their own niche market. Palmer’s is guns.

     When you enter Palmer’s, it looks like any country store that’s been around a while. But as I walk around, Palmer’s begins to distinguish itself from any other store I’ve seen. I am amazed at shoes, hats, and bonnets—some from the 1930s—wooden thimbles of thread, even a 1923 Ladies Birthd-ay Almanac.

     There are shelves with cans of corn, green beans, and carrots. I also see baking powder, canned peaches, soup, mustard, canned milk, and much more. When I ask about buying these things, Palmer says they’re mostly for display, kind of like the gas pumps out front. He hasn’t sold gas in almost 30 years. And there are packages of Congespirin, Empirin, Percy Medicine, and Geritol along with the more recognizable Sucrets and Robitussin.

Atop a display case is a collection of whiskey bottles, some similar to old crocks, and others with a fancy cut glass look.

     There is a contraption to strip husked corn off the cob. (I didn’t know that. Palmer explains it to me.) There’s a  hoop cheese cutter. Also an old washboard. Suspended from the ceiling are a single ox yoke, ice tongs, and an old carbide lamp. There are also a grain scythe and a gun furnace, the latter used by gunsmiths to make metal gun parts.

     Which leads to the guns. Palmer has quite a gun collection that includes a Model ‘92 Marlin with an octagon barrel, an H. J. Sterling double-barrel shotgun, and  a Stevens rifle from the early 1900s.

     I ask about how one buys a gun. Palmer provides form ATF-F-4473, required for an over-the-counter firearm purchase. He explains that a call to the FBI with the information from the form generally results in a reply “within a minute or so.” “Most purchases can be made the same day,” he answers in reply to my question about how long it takes to get a gun.

     I review the form and see standard stuff like name, residence address, date of birth, and the like. Then follows a number of background questions such as whether I have prior felony convictions, whether I have been dishonorably discharged from the military service, whether I am illegally in this country, and a few others. Palmer says I would need to provide picture evidence of my identity.

     The gun business is quite active during hunting season, roughly August through January. Palmer says that gun repair and service is year-round work.

     Continuing my tour, I find the walls covered with advertisements from the last century, some original, some reproductions: Worthmore Chicken Feed, Fuller Brushes, Baker’s Delight Cooking Powder, Bull Durham Tobacco, and Champion Natural Chilean Soda, to mention a few.

      For a pleasant step back in time, you can visit Palmer’s Store from 8-5:30 Monday through Thursday or from 8-5 Friday or Saturday.