C. A. Nethery & Sons General Merchandise

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little Sabine County soul. Somewhere out here in Sabine County, a man named Charles Alexander Nethery, Senior set down roots and opened a general merchandise store. The year was 1880.

Now that's not just old, friends, that is old. He was planting something, though nobody knew yet just how deep those roots would go. Four years later, in 1884, Charles married Amanda Francis Speights.

Together they built more than a business. They built a family of twelve children. Twelve.

You want to talk about legacy, well, that right there is a head start. The store hummed along for decades, serving Sabine County the way a good general store does, a little bit of everything for everybody. Then 1915 came along, and fire did what fire does.

It destroyed the first store. Gone. But here is where the story turns, because the Nethery family didn't fold.

They built again, a few yards from where the original stood, and that structure, that rectangular plan frame building with its second-story loft and its heavy duty corrugated metal on the walls and the roof, that building is still standing today. Charles Senior kept the doors open until his death in 1942. His son Charles Junior picked up right where his father left off and managed the store until his own death in 1996.

Father to son, decade after decade, the name on the store never really changed. And here's the part that'll make you slow down when you pass it. The store is still owned and operated by members of the Nethery family.

Still going. Which makes it the oldest continually operated business in Sabine County. Since 1880.

One family. One store. Still open.

Some roots, it turns out, even fire can't touch.

What the marker says

Charles Alexander Nethery, Sr. established a general merchandise near this site in 1880. Nethery married Amanda Francis Speights in 1884 and the couple had twelve children. When fire destroyed the first general merchandise store in 1915, the current structure was built a few yards from the original site. After Charles Sr.s death in 1942, the store continued under the management of their son, Charles Jr., until his death in 1996. The store is still owned and operated by members of the Nethery family and is the oldest continually operated business in Sabine County. The rectangular plan frame building with second-story loft has exterior walls and roof clad in heavy duty corrugated metal. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2009