SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – I have the doors and hardware to an antique McCray meat chest like the one you see here. You might be asking why does he only has the doors to it? Well, that is a quirky story, so let me break it down for you. My late friend Suzanne Humphrey bought it and removed it from Country Roads Store here in Pence Springs decades ago.
It had been painted green; she had the doors and hardware in her basement, stripping them down to the oak. The chest/case was stored in her husband’s garage. I remember being a young kid and waking up to someone parked in our driveway, blowing their horn repeatedly. We all got up and looked. The garage was engulfed by fire. The guy was trying to get someone’s attention.
My father, David, went down to their house and they commenced to save what they could. It wasn’t much by that point; my father and Billy hooked up an old Mach 1 Mustang and Bronco and bulled it up in the yard away from the burning garage. I remember watching from our window as my father pulled the Bronco from the garage; the tires were on fire.
The case burned up in the fire, but the doors and hardware were safe in the basement. Fast forward 30 years, and their son Andy had them at his house. Andy was like me with his love for history and antiques. About 5 years ago, I traded him out of the doors. I didn’t know what, but I knew I was going to build something because of the history behind them.
We are in the process of adding a kitchen onto our house and turning the old kitchen into a dining room. So we came up with the idea of building a replica and using 5 of the doors around the dining room window. I think my father is starting to get tired of my rehab/salvage projects. I don’t intend to stop anytime soon. Ha.
I recently found this auction advertisement for Bostics Service Station in Pence Springs from 1957. I always assumed that Country Roads Store had started out as Keatleys Cash Grocery. But apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Porter Bostic sold it to the Keatleys. This auction advertisement for Bostic Service Station lists this large McCray meat cooler as one of the items in the auction sale.
It sat in the store for decades after that sale. While taking the doors apart to finish stripping the paint from it we found a water line across the inside of the doors. This had to be from the flood of 1967, 1973, or 1977. Based on where this sat in the back room, which is higher than the main floor. And the flood of 73 was a crest of 20.30ft; it was more than likely a water mark of that time.
