A General Experience in Downtown Hendersonville

The Mast General Store: An honest review

Downtown Hendersonville is a wonderful, thriving, eclectic place. How eclectic? Well, there’s Hospice Home Supply right there on the edge of downtown, in the shadow of the courthouse. But that’s OK. There’s also a SweetFrog shop right next door. So, as you’re touring downtown, you can have a somewhat stark and shocking reminder of your own mortality, and then wash it away with a refreshing and delicious Fro-yo.

Afterward, if you still need a little help shaking off the shadows of the inevitable gaping maw awaiting us all, there’s a baby boutique directly across the street.

On the opposite end of downtown, far away from the retail tribute to the Yin and Yang of the circle of life, sits a Mast General Store, filled with flannel, old man hats, classic candies, and a lot more. A living tribute to the history of retail in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. 

The history of Mast General Store

Born in the tiny community of Valle Crucis, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Banner Elk and Boone, the Mast General Store began life as the name suggests, a general store offering a little bit of anything and everything to its customers. The store’s roots date back to the 1850s, when Henry Taylor moved from Sugar Grove, five miles away, and set up shop. Before the Civil War, he took on a partner, and the store became the Taylor & Moore General Store. 

In 1897, Taylor sold his half of the business to W.W. Mast – you can see where this is going. In 1913, Mast bought out the rest, and the Mast name has remained. The Mast family ran the store and carried everything they could. 

“If you can’t buy it here, you don’t need it,” was the slogan.

While the store obviously took money, it also extended credit and traded in barter. You could bring a chicken in, get it weighed, and walk out with something of like value. That system is not in place today. Do not bring chickens to Downtown Hendersonville in place of cash. 

The store closed but later reopened

By the 1970s, the once-thriving community of Valle Crucis was fading. As a result, the General Store closed. In 1979, Floridians John and Faye Cooper – who had ties to the mountains – bought the old store, fixed it up, and opened it. A wave of national publicity touting a trip back in time at the old store started bringing in tourists, and success was such that other stores were opened.

There had been other Mast stores in the 1890s and early 1900s operated by family members. However, the other stores in the Mast family are newer, opening in the ’80s or later, including the one in Hendersonville, which opened in 1995. In all, there are 11 Mast General Stores in North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. 

What will I find in a Mast General Store?

Nostalgia, really. A helluva lot of nostalgia. But also clothes and an eclectic selection of items, many of them old-timey.

The old-time candy displays – sold from large barrels – are popular with the kids, and there’s an interesting toy section featuring stuffies, modern toys, and some throwbacks to yesteryear. In the case of the boomerang, quite literally a throwback. 

The store offers a wide variety of camping equipment, knives, cast-iron cooking pans, and more. Clothing styles are somewhat mountain-friendly, things you would wear camping or hiking. But there are also items in the style of things someone might wear while camping or hiking that outdoors folks might not actually wear because it’s a little too pricey for all that mess, mud, and muck.

They have a nice array of hats in the styles chiefly worn by my grandfather’s generation, like driving caps and fedoras. They did have a leather fedora or two that caught my attention, but it wasn’t quite Indiana-Jones enough to make me pull the trigger. 

There are books, recipes, mixes, and spices for baking or cooking. They have a variety of jams and jellies, salsas, and other items, as well as pickled items. The stores also have home décor, kitchen décor, pottery, mugs, tumblers, and other such items. It ain’t everything you need in the world, but it’s a pretty good dent in it, especially if you’re outdoorsy. 

Is the Mast General Store worth it?

Sure, as a curiosity, a step back in time kind of thing, it’s absolutely worth stopping in. The kids will enjoy the candy section and actually seeing a store that sells toys, though you may have to fend off a desperate attempt to sell you a boomerang or slingshot. The clothing is high quality, though it is very outdoor-core. 

There’s a lot to look at in the eclectic collection, which really allows you to explore and maybe even consider what your life would be like if you dressed heavily in hiking gear and frequently wore something called a men’s Gable Safari Hat while carrying a WASP sculpted hatchet that cost $635.

Seriously, if I had a hatchet that cost $635 I would have to go some to Lowe’s or somewhere and get another hatchet to actually use for chopping branches and the like. I would have two hatchets, my utilitarian everyday hatchet and my fancy dress hatchet, that I would only carry when I was in my formal dress kilt. Also, I would have to get a formal dress kilt.

Can it be a wormhole of sorts?

Shopping there can lead to very expensive, life-changing wormholes. Still, if you make a visit to the Mast General Store as a diverting half hour during your exploration of downtown Hendersonville and not as a driver to reinvent your life, it’s certainly worth your time.

And if you do decide to spend $635 on a large, bearded axe, you can put on your dress kilt, take the short stroll down to the hospice store, and challenge the grim reaper to a bladed battle for immortality. The store’s address is 527 N Main St. in Hendersonville, NC. Follow the website here.

Have you visited Mast General Store? What did you think? Let us know in the comments here and on the socials!