This week I visited a little mountain town in North Carolina sitting in the valley of three creeks. A traveling priest in 1842 named this beautiful spot: Valle Crucis-( Latin for “Valley of the Cross). A popular story is that the land was traded for a dog, a rifle, and a sheepskin in the late 1700s.  Before the Civil War in 1851 Henry Taylor, settled in the area and opened up a small general store known as The Taylor and Moore Company.

He built his home across the street which  also served as a boarding house.  In remote mountain towns the general store was essential to the people’s survival. It was a place where the locals bought and traded things like eggs or ginseng for sugar, bolts of cloth and shoes. These stores often became the hub of communities, the post offices, gathering places for musicians, town meetings,and from time to time served as home for the doctor’s offices. After Mr. Taylor died in 1899,  William Wellington Mast purchased the store and expanded it to carry everything from cradles to caskets.

Valle Crucis was once a popular stop for those traveling on the ‘East Tennessee and Western North Carolina.”  The train station is now known as Tweetsie Railroad.

I enjoyed visiting The Mast General Store and the old home place which still stands across the road.  The store is privately owned and is a prime example of a by gone era.