In Case You Missed It West Rowan Farm Home & Garden

A steady stream of farmers, retirees, grandparents and grandkids filed into an 83-year-old country store in Rowan County on a recent morning to buy everything from feed to soda pop and to sit for a spell in Amish rockers hand-built from hickory and oak.

"You sit in these things and you don’t get up for a couple of hours,” patron Jim Misenheimer said at West Rowan Farm Home & Garden, as other customers bought fertilizer, tractor supplies, die-cast model farm machines and newly introduced homemade fudge.

 And to think that several months ago, the store was about to be boarded up, its owner set to retire.Brian and Elsie Bennett decided the old store needed to live on, for the rural community to which it’s been so indispensable.

 The 1,100-square-foot store is on N.C. 801 between Mooresville and Salisbury, about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte. Locals quip that unincorporated Bear Poplar is a “suburb” of Mount Ulla, which is a “suburb” of Mooresville. 

 To get to the store, take Interstate 77 to Mooresville Exit 36. Head east on N.C. 150 to N.C. 801 and go north eight miles to the store. You’re three miles away on N.C. 801 when you pass a giant red Coble Homogenized Milk carton on the right. 

 More about the West Rowan Farm Home & Garden from the Charlotte Observer here