HARRIS CLAY COMPANY GENERAL STORE

The Harris Clay Company General Store is a long-standing landmark in the small community of Micaville and has served the area as a general store (and later retail shop) for most of its existence. The store building has associations with the locally prominent Harris Clay Company and J. L. Robinson family. The building was damaged during Hurricane Helene in September 2024 but remains structurally sound and retains a significant degree of physical integrity. Plans to rehabilitate the building seek to maintain and preserve the architectural character of the store, as well as honor the significant historical associations with early twentieth century commerce and mining in Yancey County.

Micaville is a small crossroads community located in the eastern part of Yancey County, lying along the east-west route of US 19E, which roughly bisects the county. Outside of Burnsville, the county seat, Micaville and Bald Creek were the two next largest “towns” in the early twentieth century. The community of Micaville initially developed in the late nineteenth century as a processing and trading center for the mica and feldspar industries. The county possessed considerable deposits of mica, feldspar, and kaolin, which were used in the production of glassware and china. The Black Mountain Railway was completed to Micaville around 1910 and shipped minerals and lumber out of the area.

The Harris Clay Company General Store stands at the intersection of Micaville Loop and NC 80 in Micaville, a small community approximately five miles east of Burnsville. Located on the north side of the “T” intersection—reportedly one of the busiest intersections in the county during tourism season—the store prominently overlooks NC 80 as it extends to the south. NC 80 connects to the Blue Ridge Parkway approximately 14 miles south of Micaville, as well as Mount Mitchell State Park, Carolina Hemlocks Campground, and other popular Yancey County recreation spots. Ayles Creek flows south-to-north into Micaville along the west side of NC 80 and joins Little Crabtree Creek at the rear of the Harris Clay Company Store.

Prominent industrialist Charles J. Harris (1853-1944) founded the Harris Clay Company in Dillsboro, Jackson County, where he had settled in 1888 and purchased Hog Rock Mine near Webster to excavate kaolin and clay. By the 1890s Harris Clay established an office in Dillsboro and was shipping significant quantities of kaolin and clay to manufacturers in New Jersey and potteries in the Midwest. In 1910, Harris expanded operations to include the Beaver Creek Mine in Mitchell County. As Hog Rock became depleted, the company’s mining operations shifted to Mitchell and Yancey counties, although Harris Clay maintained its company headquarters in Dillsboro. As early as 1908, Charles Harris began acquiring land and mineral rights in Yancey County. In May 1908, Harris purchased a sawmill on Ayles Creek from Robert Stamey for $600. Harris and his company recorded more than 50 transactions Yancey County, mostly in Crabtree Township, over the next 25 years. Although it is believed to have been constructed around 1916, it is unclear exactly when the store, which also served as the company office in Micaville, was built. Newspaper articles from April 1914 note that the Thomas Mercantile Company of Micaville was chartered with $25,000 capital authorized and subscribed by C. J. Harris.

The Harris Clay Company General Store is the only surviving rural store in Yancey County to be finished with pebbledash stucco. English-born architect Richard Sharp Smith of Asheville, who came to the area in 1889 as the supervising architect for the construction of Biltmore, popularized the use of pebbledash in the English architectural modes he favored. Smith designed more than two dozen buildings for George Vanderbilt’s manorial village at the entrance to Biltmore, including residences, offices, and an infirmary, that employed pebbledash, brick accents, and half-timbered exteriors. Smith used pebbledash stucco as the primary exterior material for public buildings like the Young Men’s Institute in Asheville and Dorland Memorial Presbyterian Church in Hot Springs. In fact, two of Smith’s three main projects in neighboring Madison County were finished with pebbledash. While the use of pebbledash is most closely associated with Smith, its popularity expanded throughout the region and was picked up by others to a limited degree.

The Harris Clay Company General Store serves as an excellent example of a rural store building and rare use of pebbledash stucco in Yancey County. Associated with the regionally active Harris Clay Company, a kaolin mining company, the store served as a significant local business serving the Micaville community and as the company’s local office for its nearby mining operation. After it was sold by Harris Clay in 1942, local residents Leland and Hettie Robinson continued operating the general merchandise store and added gas pumps as one way of adapting to the changing times. The store continued into the second half of the twentieth century as a local landmark and community gathering place even as its business gradually came to favor tourists and visitors.

The Harris Clay Company General Store was included among eight resources placed on the Study List in 1994 as part of the Micaville Historic District. The district was subsequently determined eligible for the National Register in 2000. Since that time, a service station located at the principal intersection in the district was demolished around 2005. A second store building in the district, Dellinger & Silver General Store, was largely demolished around 2018, leaving only a later concrete block section. The Micaville Post Office, which stood adjacent to the Harris Clay Store, was destroyed in the flooding of September 2024.

Mitzi Shook’s description of Micaville, in her 1981 survey report for Yancey County, mentions a general store that “once stood across the river which flows through town [and] even though this structure does not still stand, what used to be a general store now stands on the opposite side of the river, at the crossroads of the small town” (p.43). While somewhat confusing in this description, Shook does clearly identify the second of these buildings as the Harris Clay Company General Store, which she dated to around 1927 or 1928. It is possible that the earlier store Shook mentions was the Thomas Mercantile Store, but that is only speculation. It seems most likely that the present building was erected in the early 1910s (possibly as the Thomas Mercantile Store) as C. J. Harris was developing his operations in Yancey County. Having begun as a mica processing and trading center, Micaville experienced an extended period of prosperity beginning in the 1910s and continuing for at least a couple of decades. The Harris Clay Company operated its kaolin mine in the area, while North State Feldspar had its own mine and processing plant nearby. W. F. Deneen of Micaville organized the Carolina China Clay Company in 1931 and worked a kaolin mine near Spruce Pine.

In addition to houses, a service station was constructed at the central intersection in Micaville in the 1930s, and a small concrete block building on the west side of Ayles Creek became the post office. In 1936, the WPA erected a new one-story stone school building in Micaville, which stands approximately 600 feet south of the community’s center. In 1942, the Harris Clay Company sold the store to J. L. and Hettie Robinson for $1,000. Leland Robinson operated the store as Robinson General Merchandise and had two gas pumps located in front of the store, just inside the two metal posts supporting front canopy. It is likely that the side extension was added around this time. The Robinsons operated the store into the latter part of the twentieth century before deeding the property to their son, Thomas H. Robinson, in 1982 while maintaining a life estate. After the death of Leland Robinson, his widow transferred her life estate to Thomas Robinson in 1991. The current owner Kari Weaver purchased the building from the Robinson family in 2014.