Roy Black General Store, Greenmount, Laurel County, Kentucky

In 1939, businessman Roy Black decided to upgrade his store. Once located along the Rockcastle River Railway,* Black’s business now overlooked a modern new highway – Kentucky Route 30 – with cars zooming past his general store rather than trains hauling lumber.  His old store was a one-story, front gable frame building – a common type in rural Kentucky – but Black had big plans for his new building.

Facade of the store today.

The new two-story store and residence (an apartment was located on the second floor) was built from local quarried stone, for which Black paid $13.00 a load. There is some thought that perhaps masons associated with the National Youth Association (an agency of the New Deal in operation from 1935-1943) worked on the building.

Roy Black’s former store, a frame building clad in metal siding.

The two-story, three bay wide mortared stone building is distinctive in a landscape of farmhouses and weathered barns. It must have made quite an impression on travelers and residents alike on the new road – the stone, the stepped parapet walls topped with metal coping, the scale and permanence of the building.

Facade and side elevation.

The facade of the building, with large, multi-light display windows flanking the central door, is sheltered by a two-story porch, with a canopy providing shade to the upper level.

The store in 1996. Image from the files of the Kentucky Heritage Council.

Black sold groceries, dry goods, and farm supplies on the first floor of the store. I don’t know when the business closed, but it was vacant when first documented in 1996.

A new road was taking shape at that time, a re-routing of KY 30 away from its original railroad alignment – a project that would divert traffic away from Greenmount and the other little communities strung in a line along the old route.

Map of the Rockcastle River Railway from Elmer Sulzer’s Ghost Railroads of Kentucky. Greenmount is labeled as Bowling on the map.

A post office first opened in the Greenmount area in 1877, and operated (in various locations around the community) until 1973. But the road was the lifeblood of the community, and despite weathering two major transportation shifts, this 21st century version would change everything.

Looking down what used to be Route 30 outside of Roy Black’s old store- a stretch of pavement that now dead ends.

At some point after 1996, the store was spruced up, given a new name, and a diner – the Historic Greenmount Grocery – operated in the building. I don’t if it is still open, but all was quiet and shuttered the day I spied the stone structure and veered off of the modern new road to investigate.

Greenmount is no longer in the thick of traffic, but sits separately off of the new Route 30. The skill of the masons that built Roy Black’s store, and the quality of the materials means that the general store still stands, and judging by my experience, still possesses the charisma to attract travelers. But what the future holds for this quiet rural community and its stone building I won’t venture to guess – but I hope that whatever happens, this remarkable building is used and loved.

*The Rockcastle River Railway was organized in 1912 by the Bond-Foley Lumber Compnay, which had purchased 24,500 acres of timber in Jackson County, Kentucky. Construction on the line began in December 1912, beginning at the termination of the Louisville and Nashville railroad line in East Bernstadt to a community known as Viva. Two years later, the railroad ran to Bond, 13 miles northeast of Viva. Between 1914 and 1915, the line was extended another 10.5 miles to McKee, the county seat of Jackson County.