Preserving Havelock's Past:
The Trader Store
Sitting alongside a quiet stretch of road in Havelock is a memorial to the past, to a time before large supermarket chains and a time when the roadside grocery/filling station combination were mom-and-pop operations that also served as the center of the community. This was the Hugh Trader Store.
Restored by the Havelock Historical Preservation Foundation, the Hugh Trader Store on Miller Boulevard is open 10 AM to 5 PM Tuesdays and Saturdays for tours.
Dating back to the early 1900s, the store has retained many of its original features, including the wide-planked wooden floor and equipment, including the meat and cheese slicers, the sausage grinder and the safe and cash register. In its heyday, the store, operated by Hugh and his wife, Elsie, offered everything from aspirin to plows. Merchandise currently on display includes old-fashioned hats and shoes, pots and pans, a Mobile Oil can display rack, and soda and beer bottles. The preservation society is on the lookout for donations of other merchandise, particularly from the 1940s and 1950s, to add to the display. Photos hanging around the room depict the Trader Store at various times between the 1920s and the 1980s.
Outside, two old-fashioned gas pumps recall the heyday of the 1950s roadside station. The store, which was a stopping point not only for such famous customers as baseball legend Babe Ruth but also to thousands of Marines posted to Cherry Point during World War II. The marines arrived in Havelock at the old train station, just down the road from Trader Store. Hugh Trader died in 1961; the Trader Store, which often served as a gathering place for hosting oyster roasts and pig-pickings, closed its doors in 1977.
In order to fund its restoration projects,
the Havelock Historical Preservation Society offers engraved bricks for sale
along its Walk of Honor. Bricks can be engraved as a memorial to a loved
one, in honor of a special birthday or anniversary, or as a show of support
to the society’s efforts to preserve Havelock’s history. An on-going project
has been the acquisition, relocation and restoration of the Havelock
Railroad Station. For more information, call (252) 447-5043.
