Local Businesses in Everett

Everett contained a few small businesses to support its rural residents.

Courtesy/Peninsula Library & Historical Society

 

Local residents did not have to go far to meet their basic needs. Known as a "crossroads settlement," Everett's historic district is located around the intersection of Riverview and Everett roads. During the 1920s, Everett contained a post office, general store, school, church, cemetery, railroad station, and gasoline station. The gasoline station, located at Carter's General Store, may have been the first in the area. It was perhaps a harbinger of Everett's demise as cars and improved roads brought changes to rural life.

 

Carter General Store, Everett.

Courtesy/Peninsula Library and Historical Society

Valley Railway

In 1880, the Valley Railway established a depot near the crossroads and gave the community the name Everett, after the company's secretary-treasurer. With the establishment of rail transportation came Everett's first post office. The train provided the chief link with the outside world by bringing in mail and shipping out farm produce.

Carter's General Store

During the 1920s and 30s, Maude Carter owned Carter's General Store on Everett Road, selling mostly canned and boxed goods and gasoline. The store also had some meats and fresh produce. Bruce and Bertie Hamilton owned the business from 1944 to 1967, providing postal service from 1948 until 1953 (when service moved to Peninsula).

 

• Penny Candy

  
  

  2011 Oral History Project: Marjorie Osborne Morgan, who grew up in Everett, remembers buying penny candy from the Carter's General Store during the 1930s.

  Credit / Author:

  Marjorie Osborne Morgan

  Audio Transcript

  “Mrs. Carter’s store was . . . she had everything. She had meat, she had groceries, she had everything. And then where the post office was down there, she just had a few items, but she had this great big case as you went in the door, glass covered. It was full of penny candy. And that was our treat, because we could take two or three cents down there and go home with a bag of penny candy, you know. My friend that lives over there on Bolanz Road, she said, 'That used to be our big delight, wasn’t it?' I says, 'It was! That was our treat, if we could take three or four pennies down there and come back with a bag full of candy.'”

 

• Mudboats

  
  

  2011 Oral History Project: Marjorie Osborne Morgan, who grew up in Everett, describes how her family used mudboats, a type of skid, to transport goods to and from Everett's stores.

  Credit / Author:

  Marjorie Osborne Morgan

  Audio Transcript

  “When we lived up there on that, on the hill, and we needed things at the grocery store, there’s only one way you’d get there, and that would be hitch the horse up to what we called a mudboat, which was nothin’ but a box, a wooden box with some sides on it, because the roads were nothing but mud. And that’s the only way you could get to the grocery. ‘Cause the mud’d get that deep on it, and we’d hitch up and come down to the grocery store and get staples. And you talk about a rough ride . . . ”

 

Kepner's Store, Everett.

Courtesy/Peninsula Library & Historical Society

Kepner's Store

Miss Frank Ivel Kepner built her general store on the intersection's northwest corner sometime after 1920. She served as the community's postmistress from 1917 to 1948. The building is no longer standing, destroyed by fire in 1969.

Sager Gas Station and Confectionary

During the 1930s, the Sager Family ran a gas station and confectionary store on the intersection's southwest corner. As more people used automobiles, Everett became somewhat less isolated. In 1935, the railway depot was dismantled and the road leading to Akron was hard-surfaced, making driving easier.

 

Jim Szalay, 1931.

Courtesy/Peninsula Library and Historical Society

Szalay Farm Stand

Since 1931, the Szalay family has sold sweet corn to local residents and visitors at their farm stand on Riverview Road at Bolanz Road. "Big Jim" Szalay purchased 67 acres in Everett, taking advantage of the damp valley soil and of potential customers commuting between Akron and Cleveland. Today, Szalay's Sweet Corn Farm is a local attraction and its roadside market has expanded to sell diverse products.

 

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