PENCE SPRINGS W.Va. (WVDN) – Keatley Cash Grocery was built in Pence Springs in the mid-1940s. The first photo is of the store as it looked at that time. It originally had a garage bay to its left for automobile servicing. Eventually, the garage section was closed in to expand the grocery business. On a side note, the building was constructed around two trees that went through the roof. In the 1980s, my father, David Jones, cut one of the largest of the two trees that grew up through what is now the hardware section. Dad meticulously cut the tree out of the store in small sections.
The store was owned by Sid Cooper for a time and then by Junior Deeds in the 1960s, which brings me to the second photo of the store in this week’s piece. This was the flood of 1963. You can see below the large Esso sign his name was “C.L. Deeds.”
The 1963 flood was a crest of 17.95ft. At that height, the water was basically lapping at the front door. Over the next 53 years, the water entered the store seven times.
In 1967, four years after this photo, the river crested at 19.90 feet, which would have been roughly a foot and a half of water inside the store. Six years later, the Greenbrier River crested at 20.30 feet. In 1977, the crest was 19.8 feet.
During the record flood of 1985, the river crested at 23.95 feet. This put roughly 5.9 feet of water in the store. Eleven years after this flood, the highest flood on record occurred on the Greenbrier River at a crest of 24.33 feet. This flood had the water above the front door with over 6 feet of water in the building.
The next time it entered the store was in 2010. I helped move the contents from the store. We worked for hours and moved almost everything out of the building because the forecasted crest kept fluctuating, and at times, the news going around was a potential crest higher than the flood of 1996. The crest for this rise came in at 18.7 feet. Putting roughly only 7 inches of water in the building.
The last time the water was in the store was during the 1000-year rain event that devastated the towns of White Sulphur and Rainelle in 2016 with a crest of 22 feet on the Greenbrier. Around 4 feet of water made it inside the building.
My family and I have always assisted in saving the stock and the clean up after a flood for decades. My father and I, as well as quite a few other locals, worked vigorously for hours, saving what we could as we awaited the water coming downriver to Pence Springs. I kept texting my cousin who lived in Alderson, West Virginia, and she was telling me about the efforts going on upriver.
Remember, this was technically a flash river flood, a never-before-seen event. The locals who had watched and studied the Greenbrier River their entire lives were thrown off. I remember once we had saved all we could, we all ended up standing on Route 3 looking towards the river, wondering where the water was.
I had messaged my cousin, and she told me different points of reference for the height of the water in Alderson. I looked at my father, who was standing beside me, and asked him, “Dad, if it is already that high in Alderson, shouldn’t it be in the store by now?”
Before he could answer me, we heard something, and hundreds of mice came running out of the field across the river across our feet headed towards the store. We turned to watch them run and then turned back to the field wondering what in the world was going on.
Suddenly, you could see the water coming across the left end of the field towards Alderson and rising extremely fast. You see, typically the water rises coming in on the right end of that field and then slowly crosses Route 3 in front of the store. This was the first time this is known to have happened. My father said, “OK everybody, get in your trucks, and let’s get out of here while we can!”
We all went home and went to bed, woke up to a very foggy morning, and as the fog cleared, we could begin to see the devastation that had happened. This flood was nearly 2 feet less than the highest 1996 flood. But it occurred with no warning. It left no one with time to save anything or prepare for it in any manner they had used for decades.
After briefly discussing the floods that have entered the building, let me depart and discuss the flood of 1963 photo. It was recently provided to me by Sue Humphrey, who lives in Charleson. She grew up in Pence Springs, above the flea market, and descends from the prominent Coiner family of the region.
Sue was 12 years old at the time, and her father, Johnny Coiner, took this photo. Sue is the young girl beside the gas pumps. Her grandfather, J.W. Coiner, is the gentleman standing in the water taking a photo of the man in the boat in the parking lot. Sue remembers watching a mouse swim in the water trying to find dry land. There must be something with mice in Pence Springs for two of its citizens to tell stories of them during floods 53 years apart Ha.
The man in the boat is Alvin Garten, who lived on the opposite side of the river. He had ventured across the bridge and, therefore, was able to make it through the water by rowing through less swift water at each end of the bridge. He had rowed his boat up to the pumps and was pretending to “gas up” his boat before this photo showing him was taken.
The store was later sold to the Persinger Family, and then the Burdette Family took it over. Byrd and Nova Keatley later purchased the store. Nova is the one who made this location famous for her hot dogs. As a child, if someone said, “I am going to get a Byrd dog,” you knew what they were talking about and where they were going. The name still occasionally pops up from time to time.
The store went back into the Persinger family when Leslie Persinger purchased the store. He had it until January 1, 2021, when brothers Justin and Jody Fox bought Country Roads Store. They changed the name of it to reflect their partnership and added their initials. It is now named J&J Country Roads Store.
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