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Amber Dilley
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Store anchors community for 100 years
TRACY — When the Tracy General Store opened, it offered everything a person of that time would want: feed for animals and their owners, various items needed for the home. It also acted as a hub for community members to gather in area in southern Barren County.
One hundred years later, the store still offers general items for the home, adding hot food and gasoline over the years. It’s still the hub of the community.
Owned by the same family for a century, the store plans on celebrating its diamond anniversary with fireworks.
On July 4, the store will have a cookout, games for kids and fireworks at the end of the day.
Two musical groups will perform: Road Kill and Bob and Joanna Harvey.
“Road Kill is bringing their karaoke machine, so in between the singing, whoever wants to sing can have at it,” said Kay Bush, third generation owner of the store. “We’re going to have two inflatables for the kids, so they can have fun on those. At the end of the day, we’ll have fireworks.”
The store has changed physically since it first opened, with Bush’s grandfather, G.C. Bush acting as store keep and postmaster of Tracy. During The Depression, the elder Bush would hand out one dollar trading coupons to people.
“They would bring in their chickens or vegetables and trade them for other things they needed,” Kay said. “I’d say he really helped out people around here during that time.”
In 1958, the store was rebuilt.
“It used to face the other way,” Kay said. “Austin-Tracy Road, before it was called that, used to turn toward Fountain Run.”
“The road that went past that was just dirt,” added D.R. Bush, Kay’s father.
Bush bought the store when his mother died in 1984 and remembers when he used to work there as a boy.
“We had a rolling store” — a truck that carried various items from the store — “me and my brother used to drive out in the county and sell things to people who couldn’t get to us,” Bush said.
Bush said he remembers selling a lot of feed to customers.
The store is much like it was back then, with the same shelves, the same walls used in the post office section and much of the same gossip.
“People come in during lunch and just catch up,” Kay said. “This is where you come if you want to know what’s going on. This is where people hang out.”
With in-store made black angus burgers that get as big as eight ounces, the food is now the main draw to the store for people in the area.
“Years ago when my father had it, it was the only game in town,” Kay said. “I’d say it was a hopping place. It still is. I hope it’s around for another 100 years.”
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