Items from Dinwiddie store to be auctioned today

DINWIDDIE From the outside, the old Baxter's General Store shows signs of its age.

The siding is graying. The front porch floor is loose. The windows are dusty.

But the words "Ice Cream, Cold Drinks, Cigars and Cigarettes" next to the picture of an ice cream cone remain legible in the front window glass.

More than 30 years ago, this was a popular country store. It was the place to go for meats, grains, flour, snacks, pesticides -- just about anything. The Baxter family ran the store from 1919 until it closed in the late 1970s.

Until now, remnants of the glory days at Baxter's have been kept intact inside the property. Today, the old store will hold its last sale.

All of its contents -- some call them treasures, left when the business closed -- will be sold at auction today starting at 10 a.m. at the store, 14023 Boydton Plank Road in the county's Courthouse area.

"There are a lot of memories here," Frank Baxter, grandson of the store's original owner, R.E. Baxter said yesterday while going over a pile of invoices from the 1960s and 1970s. The papers documented prices of merchandise, and some had his grandmother's writing and signature on them.

Baxter, 60, who owns Baxter's Drug Store in McKenney, recalled his teenage years working at the store, lifting sacks of flour and grains. It was the typical country store, he said, with operating hours from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the family lived in the property.

"It is time to let go," he said yesterday as workers with Tilman's Auction prepared for today's sale.

Items on the block include several rare soda syrup dispensers from the 1920s that remained untouched for decades in the property's attic. There's also a 1930s Putnam Dyes-Tints display cabinet that once held a wide range of dyes used to change the color of fabric, including clothes. And there's a Coca-Cola box from the 1940s and an old penny bubble gum machine, along with furniture, signs and old vehicles.

Tim Ogburn, who as a teenager used to stop by Baxter's for ice cream, recently purchased the property from Frank Baxter. He said he still doesn't know what he will do with it, but restoration of the property is unlikely because of the costs involved.

After today, the structure will likely be demolished and what's left inside, except the memories, will be gone.

"In a way, it is a sad day," said James A. "Bucky" Tilman, owner of Tilman's Auction. "Another country store has had its last call.

"This is the grand finale."

Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or .