The Old Sautee Store

We had lunch today at “The Old Sautee Store.” This is one of a handful of pre-1900 retail establishments still standing in northeast Georgia.

When it was built in 1873 it was a true general store. Local residents would come to the store to purchase food, seed, or farm equipment. Lois’photo was taken in the old part of the store.

The Old Sautee Store served as a local post office for Sautee-Nachoochee until 1913 and as post office for Sautee until 1962. Loss of the mail contract in 1962 meant hard times for the owners, who sold the store in the early 1970's. The new post office is only a block away.

Astrid Fried, a native of Norway purchased the store in 1974 and began to sell various items from her country in the store while preserving the post office area as a museum of sorts. Now a guy from Peoria IL owns it and he stocks beautiful amber and silver jewelry from Russia. We bought a half-wheel of Farmer Cheese, imported from Sweden.

Otherwise the store is a beautiful three rooms of goods for liesure time. There is a camping gear section, men’s and women’s outdoor clothing sections featuring labels from Croc’s, Woolrich and Columbia.

There was lots of other neat stuff for liesure-time activities like candles, napkins, walking sticks and books. I was particularly taken by a colorful book on mountain cabins (would love to build one).

The store is located in the Nacoochee Valley Historic District at the intersection of the Nacoochee and Sautee Valleys of Northeast Georgia. Through the Nacoochee Valley and directly in front of the store ran the old Unicoi Turnpike(now Hwy 76), a major thoroughfare from the navigatable end of the Tugaloo River to the Unicoi Mountains of East Tennessee.

After nearly 135 years the old store still retains the characteristics of the Old Days with its deep, rich golden brown hues of aged wood. In the front one can still see the past in the memorable displays of days gone by, while finding many "new" general store items such a old-time candy, specialty foods, house-wares, gifts, apparel and jewelry in the back additions to this proud old one-of-a-kind establishment.

The lunch is served next door in a log cabin structure. We had a Cuban black bean soup and half a home-made beef sandwich on rye. This was out second time there for lunch, but the first time we visited inside the store.

If you are ever in the area, we recommend you visit The Old Sautee Store.