Hardaway’s Country Store
The country or rural store was the heart of the community. It was a place to gas up the car, get bread and milk, buy a belt for the tractor, or feed for the cows. It was also a place to catch up on the latest community news. The store was also part of rural Texas's social and economic history. Farmers bought food and staples on credit and paid the bill when their crops came in. Farmers' wives provided butter, fresh eggs, and buttermilk to the store for cash or to pay their bills. They would also sell or trade handmade items such as quilts, thread, household goods, and other staples. With cash available only during one season of the year, the credit extended by the rural store was an essential part of the agricultural life in early East Texas.
Community or country stores were located about five miles apart. These stores were essential to life from the 1840s until the 1950s and 1960s. Farmers gathered around the store’s wood stove and traded stories, cattle prices, and crop tips. During the winter months, games of checkers and dominoes were ways for patrons to pass the time on bad weather days. With changing times, technology, and industry, the stores and the family farming industry they supported started to decline.
Hardaway's Store was located at Farm to Market roads 1716 and 1797 intersection in the Stewart Community in northeastern Rusk County. The store was built in the late 1920s by S. E. Prather, then owned by J. R. Pepper, and ultimately sold to Atwood Hardaway in 1949. The Hardaway family operated the store until it closed permanently in 1992. The family's living quarters were attached to the left side of the store, and a feed building was to the right side of the structure.
The Hardaway family donated the store building to the Depot Museum in 2004, and it was moved to the museum grounds. It has been renovated and furnished in a manner representative of most country stores of that era.