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Historic Todd General Store Burns To The Ground

Ashe County's Todd General Store, a century-old High Country gathering spot, has been destroyed by a fire.

The property is located about halfway between Boone and West Jefferson near a bend in the South Fork of the New River. 

The building dates to 1914. The National Register of Historic Places refers to it as “an excellent example of a rural general store,” noting that the interior had the original shelving, sales counter and pressed tin ceiling.

Ashe County fire investigators say it burned to the ground last week. They haven't determined a cause for the blaze but think it's likely that it started in the kitchen. No one was injured.

The business, a well-known social spot for the Todd area, has changed hands several times over the course of its long history, most recently in 2019.

The newest owners had just reopened the store in the summer. Locals are raising money to help the family.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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