SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – As much as I love local history, I love antiques more, and when the two meet, I am ecstatic. I have been this way since attending my first auction when I was 10 years old in Pence Springs. When my friends Bill and Kitty Bragg closed their antique store here after the flood of 1996, they had their auction across the road in the field beside Riverside Inn, and it ignited a fire in me.
Mom and I were going through Hinton roughly 10 years ago, then we turned off the bridge that crosses the Greenbrier River to turn left. I noticed this cute little miniature stepback cupboard at a roadside sale. I immediately stopped, pulled over, and got out to retrieve my latest find.
After I had purchased this unusual handmade piece, I took the drawers out to clean it. After further examining them, I noticed it is written on the bottom of the two drawers, “Natl. Bk. of Summers of Hinton, W.Va.” It is the only identifying mark of it being constructed from shipping crates. It measures 35” tall by 24” wide.
Handmade miniature furniture pieces like this cupboard became increasingly popular during the Great Depression. And fathers who were going to build their daughter something they had seen in the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue, for instance, often used shipping crates such as these from the National Bank rather than purchasing lumber for their project.
You can just envision a young girl, either on her birthday or for Christmas, waking up to this treasure. It makes you wonder what the backstory of the making of this piece is. Whether it was a janitor of the bank who saved these crates from the garbage. Or if someone rummaged through the bank’s trash to get these crates, as they say now, “repurpose” them for this project.
Either way, I am glad someone did save them and used them to build this cabinet. It filled two voids in my life: an antique child’s piece and having a local history connection. Yes, we will say it filled a “void”, that is how we hoarders justify purchases. Ha
