Historical General Store Museum " T.H.Ellis Grocery"

Historical General Store Museum " T.H.Ellis Grocery" Owner and Caretakers~ Kirk and Julie Neeley
Historical General Store museum
Appalachian Quilt Trail Patty. About 1921 Squire John S. Ellis Grocery.". Norton.

The Historical store and grist mill were built in 1905 by a man named John S. A Blacksmith shop and a two-story store and home combined were also erected on the bend of Ellejoy Creek. The mill burned in 1911 and was rebuilt, Charred embers were still visible in the buildings underpinning. Patty traded the mill for a farm then bought it back-1922 or 1923, He died here in 1926. His son Willis Patty

took it over, then in 1927 sold the Mill to his brother Joe Patty. About 1929 Joe Patty sold the Mill and Store to W.M Davis, who in about 1940 handed over the rein's of both businesses to his daughter Katherine Davis/Ellis and husband Thomas Ellis. Only the remains are left from where the once massive three story mill once stood, the old Grist mill was called "Ellejoy Mill's", The farmers had their wheat and corn ground in this old mill,sadly tore down, it was razed for reasons of safety. The store's earlier years had been a couple of other names, one may have been Boling, but the majority of its life it was "T.H. In 1984 Willma and Barton Haggard purchased the store, they sold off some of the property that had included the stores old barn and original outhouse to Mr. They turned this old store into a few faces including, a Bed and Breakfast, A Cafe called "McTeer Place", A boys dorm for exchange students, If it had another face we have yet to know about it yet but presently it is under the ownership of our family,we are Kirk and Julie Neeley. In 2008 we purchased this diamond in the rough. We are the owner and caretakers of this amazing structure,with great pride and historical respect our goal is to continue to keep learning more about it's history so that it may be carried with it the rest of our lives and on to the next caretakers. To share all we know would be to write a book. We welcome all to come pay us a visit and go through the old store, now museum, a work in progress, but I promise you that when you pay a visit you will feel as our motto say's: "Step in... and you will step back...in time" You will also find this historical structure on the "Appalachian Quilt Trail" Our 4x4 quilt block is located on the upper part of the store front, the pattern is called "Stained Glass". This program is designed to draw special attention to old structures that are worthy of recognition for their past, You will find them on old barns, rural family owned businesses etc. There are two kinds of stops, a "Trail stop" or an "Away stop" Our old store at this time is an "Away stop" presently we have nothing that we sell yet. There are some 600 plus quilts hung throughout the state of Tennessee, It is a wonderful program and we are honored to have T.H. Ellis Grocery Museum on the trail. There is a monument located in our front yard that is a historical marker for "Fort McTeer" Fort, the Daughters of the American revolution placed the marker there in 1936. Fort McTeer was the first fort built in 1784, it was the first of many. Robert McTeer built the fort and he along with many of the McTeers are buried up the road from us at the Historical Eusibia Church, the site once the camping ground for the early settlers along the Great War and Trading Path 1784-85. I highly recommend anyone from around these parts of Walland, Maryville etc.to take the time to find out more about these historical forts and why there was the need for so many and the stories around them. Please come and visit us anytime, We work out of the home for now, but if we are home we allow folks to come through. Thank you for visiting our site which is also a work in progress. Have a wonderful day and God bless. Sincerly,
Kirk and Julie Neeley

07/18/2026
07/18/2026

🍎 Fried apple pies on a cast iron skillet on a Saturday morning. The dried apples reconstituted with cinnamon and a little sugar. The dough rolled thin and cut in circles. The edges crimped with a fork and fried in lard until they were the specific golden brown that meant they were done. You could smell them before you got to the house. That smell is the whole of Saturday morning in these mountains, distilled into one cast iron skillet. 🏔️

The fried apple pie — sometimes called a half-moon pie or a stack pie or simply an apple turnover in the more genteel mountain households — is one of the most distinctly and most specifically Appalachian of all the mountain dessert and breakfast traditions, produced from the same dried apples that went into the stack cake and the apple butter but prepared differently, fried rather than baked, served hot rather than rested, consumed immediately rather than improved by waiting. Where the stack cake required two days of patience before it was at its best, the fried apple pie rewarded no patience at all — it was best in the first five minutes out of the skillet, while the crust was still hot and slightly crisp from the lard and the filling was still molten and fragrant and the sugar dusted on top had not yet had time to dissolve entirely into the surface. This was not a dish for ceremony or for company dinners. It was a dish for Saturday mornings when the family was still in their nightclothes and the stove was already hot and someone who loved them was at the skillet before the rest of the house was fully awake.

The dried apples that filled them were the same apples put up in fall — sliced thin and dried on screens in the sun or in a low oven, then stored in cloth bags that hung in the root cellar or the attic through the winter, rehydrating slowly in their own residual moisture until needed. Reconstituted in a pot with a little water, sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes a touch of nutmeg or allspice, they produced a filling that had an intensity of apple flavor that fresh apples could not match — concentrated by the drying process into something deeper and winier and more specifically autumnal than any fresh apple preparation. Wrapped in a simple lard-enriched dough, crimped with a fork along the half-moon edge, and fried in the same cast iron skillet that had been making them since before the grandmother who was making them now was born, they produced something that people who grew up eating them describe not merely as food but as the specific sensory signature of a Saturday morning in their grandmother's kitchen, which is as close to a definition of home as food can come.

Did your family make fried apple pies on Saturday mornings, and do you remember the smell of them from outside the house? 💬 Tell us about it in the comments. Follow along for more from the Cast Iron series. 🍎🏔️

There is one just like this in our museum…. We purchased the Biscuit Bowl for $5.00 at an Appalachian homestyle lady, Sh...
07/18/2026

There is one just like this in our museum…. We purchased the Biscuit Bowl for $5.00 at an Appalachian homestyle lady, She had a story to share about it.
She felt it was irreplaceable and felt it was priceless…
I’m not sure why she sold it to me and why it was sale. But it is a precious antique item in our museum collection.

Hot coffee is poured in the saucer to blow on it and cool it off to make it drinkable.Historically referred to as“ Sauce...
07/14/2026

Hot coffee is poured in the saucer to blow on it and cool it off to make it drinkable.
Historically referred to as
“ Saucering Coffee” ☕️

07/13/2026
The old General stores were the hub bub of information and gossip.
07/13/2026

The old General stores were the hub bub of information and gossip.

Olden days at the old General Stores ….
07/08/2026

Olden days at the old
General Stores ….

Address

602 Prospect Road
Walland, TN
37886

Telephone

+18652233207

Website

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