About · since 1993
The Watsons built it. Jackson kept it going.
The Watson family's hardware store for three decades, and Jackson Cox's since May 2023. Herbert, the store says, handles the greetings.
1993 – 2023
Bob Watson's dream.
The store began as a small True Value in the old Valleymont Grocery, near the Blue Ridge Pig, and moved to this spot in the mid-1990s, when crews poured the concrete for the building that stands here now. Bob Watson ran it. His son Danny came home in the spring of 1994 and started helping, and after Bob died in 1997 Danny and his mother, Lyna, ran it for the next quarter century.
As Blue Ridge Life reported it, May 29, 2023.
“…this was Bob Watson’s dream… The epitome of a Master Jack of all Trades. Not to mention the quintessential salesman. Many of our current customers followed him down the hill.”
“I love being here. And I love seeing everybody and I love helping solve the problems.”
May 2023 onward
A friend of the store bought it.
Jackson Cox, a friend of Danny's for six years and in the store a couple of times a week, bought the store and the adjoining property in May 2023. His background in hardware and construction comes from his father, who owned a sawmill company in Churchville. By late June the store was being completely restocked, with a new point-of-sale system at the counter; new seven-foot shelves were part of his plan.
By the store's own account, the new ownership added lumber, drywall and plywood, a Stihl dealership, equipment repair, U-Haul rentals and UPS services.
Blue Ridge Life, May 29 and June 27, 2023; the store's About page.
“It was a necessity for me, so I knew it was a necessity for everybody else. I wanted to save it and see it not be turned into something we didn’t need around here.”
“Really this is the first time since it’s founding that it’s really started over… And the land has been in their family for about 240 years.”
The real boss
Herbert, the shop doodle.
“With his fluffy coat, happy tail wags, and professional-level greeting skills, he makes every visit a little brighter… And if he happens to be napping on the job, don’t worry — he works hard and takes his breaks seriously.”
His name is on the store's reply to a one-star Google review. Read it, and the rest.
Behind the counter
Names from the 2023 hand-off.
Jackson named his cousin Lee Cummings and Hanna Knopp as his right hands when he took over, and hoped Jimmy Campbell, "Mr. Customer Service" to Lyna Watson, would stay on. Who is at the counter today is the store's to tell.