Country Store Shop Sign

This sign was a grocery store bulletin board collected from a country store in Plymouth, Vermont, the birthplace of President Calvin Coolidge. The president’s father, John Coolidge, owned a country store in the town from 1868 until 1917. Florence Cilley continued to operate the store from 1917 until 1945. It is not known if this sign came from the Coolidge store or another country store in Plymouth, but the Coolidge/Cilley country store history provides a model for the role a typical country store played in rural communities across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the Grange Movement took off after the Civil War, country stores became the nerve centers of rural communities, providing credit or barter in locally grown crops in defense against railroad monopolies. A fraternal and lobbying organization for farmers, the Grange Movement achieved rural mail delivery for rural areas and funding for agricultural colleges. The Coolidge store offered space in a second story large vaulted room for weekly Grange dances and family reunions. Store owner John Coolidge served as the town’s notary public and administered the presidential oath of office to his son following the death of President Warren Harding in 1923, and the store took on the role of Summer White House during Coolidge’s administration. But as the Grange Movement illustrates, the country store played a central role in politics of rural towns long before the Coolidge presidency. The bulletin board and bellied stove provided the center for political and business exchange, crop-growing and harvesting advice, local and national news, and storytelling. The Coolidge country store is now available for public viewing at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth, Vermont, where “buying local” is not a new idea and political news goes beyond national televised coverage.

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