A Peek into Summers County’s Past: Talcott Cash Store and Miller Mercantile Company

SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) - One of my favorite items in my vast collection is little antique local advertising pieces like you see here. They are usually something that was commonly used , so when you used them, you would think of the business it was advertising.

The first item in this week's piece is a little flour sifter from the early 1930s from the Miller Mercantile Company. It was operated in a partnership by Hugh C. Miller, E. C. Miller and Mrs. Melvina Miller in Talcott, West Virginia. I have been unable to find out much about it other than it was a business that was in operation in 1934 from a few newspaper articles I have come across that made reference to the business during my research.

This unique piece was recently given to me by my friend Tom Hutchison, who I had as a teacher in high school. He, too, loves local history and knew I would appreciate it as he had for years. Tom purchased it at a local auction decades ago.

The other piece is a match safe advertising for Talcott Cash Store Talcott, W. Va. It is from the 1920s, and the store was in operation at least through the mid-1950s from what records I have come across. The front of the safe reads, “ You Strike It Right When You Trade With Talcott Cash Store J.W. Gillispie, Prop. Groceries, Fruit and Vegetables Talcott, W. Va .”

This was quite a clever gimmick. Think about it; every time you needed a match that was more commonly used during that time, you would think about what else you could get at Talcott Cash Store. I ended up with two of these match safes somehow, but this one is in the best condition.

Even more interesting than this match safe, in particular, is where I bought it from. The estate auction for Robert Lindsay was conducted on Robert’s farm at the top of Bacon's Mountain in Talcott. I am not sure of the exact date, but it was sometime around 2010 or so .

My Granddad Thompson and I spent a few days helping go through the outbuildings for the auction. Mr. Lindsay and Granddad had known one another for years, and the two of them were “ collectors. ” I have always loved doing that type of thing and rummaging through old collections like his.

There were lots and lots of local pieces at that sale; this safe and a few other things are what I came home with. He had quite an interesting collection. From this local match safe to antique local bottles, antique crocks and furniture, you name it, he had it. He even had the original post office building for what became the community of Valley Heights, above Pence Springs from 1907.

Very few people are aware of this, but that little community was first established as Reno, West Virginia on November 15, 1907. Then, its name was changed to what now is “ Valley Heights ” on March 6, 1908. The Valley Heights Post Office was discontinued on May 22, 1922, and was moved to the other side of the river, where it was merged with Pence Springs Post Office.

I never learned the entire story, but somehow Mr. Lindsay acquired the building that had been the Reno Post Office and moved it to his farm at the top of Bacon's Mountain after the Valley Heights Hotel had burned , and the post office was discontinued at this location. It is a small building, roughly 10 feet by 10 feet.

The things you can learn just by listening to older folks in the community never cease to amaze me. You see, my late friend and Summers County Historian John Kessler had told me about the community of Valley Heights having started as Reno. I contacted the late Senator Robert C. Byrd’s office and had him verify this for authentication purposes.

Then, when John found out Granddad and I were helping organize Mr. Lindsay's auction he told me about how he had moved the post office building to his farm to be used as an outbuilding. This is why one of my all-time favorite things to do on a Saturday morning was to attend a local outdoor auction on a cool, foggy morning and have a cup of coffee under a big white tent.

I have remained friends with local auctioneer Randy Burdett, and we were recently talking about how we miss the days of outdoor auctions being common practice. Randy is the auctioneer who had Mr. Lindsay's auction , now that I think about it .

And we were naming the attributes of it like I previously mentioned. And when we got to what time they commonly started, we both said, “ 9:59 a.m., ” at the same time. If you were a regular at one of Randy’s auctions as I was, you knew it did not start at 10 a.m. , it started at 9:59 a.m. Sure worked well for advertising because you kept talking about his start times even after the sale ended.

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