[G&G] Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, my paternal great-grandfather operated a general store in the unincorporated tobacco farming community of Hyman, South Carolina, that sold everything from "penny candy to coffins," my grandmother once said. Today, the old building at the intersection of North Pamplico Highway and Big Swamp Road remains, but the store itself is long gone, an echo of the past like so many other rural country stores replaced by Dollar Generals, Walmarts, and the might of Amazon.
Despite that corporate creep, a handful of stalwart enterprises endure across the South. In South Carolina, Cooper’s Country Store is still a popular pit stop between Columbia and the Grand Strand’s sandy shores, nearly a century after it opened. The two-story shop sells gas and other grocery basics, but it’s the locally cured country ham (sold whole or by the slice) that most folks seek. My parents often make the hour-and-a-half drive up from Charleston just to secure one of their famed hams, which they’ll slice and layer inside homemade biscuits, tailgate fodder for Clemson football games. In rural Gravel Switch, Kentucky, Penn’s Store—the nation’s oldest country store still run by the same family—is beloved by the G&G contributor and poet Maurice Manning.
Discover seven more country stores with deep roots and the kind of retro road-trip appeal that will have you rolling down the windows and hitting the blacktop, below. 
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