General stores were rural gathering places

Traveling along County Highway C from the unincorporated community of Disco in Jackson County to the unincorporated hamlet of Beach Corners in Trempealeau County takes about 15 minutes.

Heading west from Disco you will travel through the unincorporated burg of Franklin — where I live — and through the slightly larger outpost of Hegg in Trempealeau County before you reach Beach.

Today, the 14-mile trip through these four metropolises is quick, but not so much 100 years ago when the county highways were sand, gravel and mud. Travel was a journey, so each community had its own retail base served by a general store.

I’m most familiar with the Franklin Store, which was for many years operated by Ted and Borhild Fosse, along with Ted’s brother Melvin. I was in that store hundreds of times as a youth and remember shopping in the Hegg and Disco stores too.

From fan belts to luncheon meat, from bib overalls to cereal and every nut, bolt and screw you could think of, it seemed like the Franklin Store had it all. Nearly every day someone from our farm stopped at the store for some critical piece of hardware or for a refreshing 20-cent, 10-ounce bottle of soda pop from the old Coca-Cola chest cooler that sat out on the open front porch.

There were two gas pumps outside — premium and regular — and a Sunbeam bread sign greeted you on the screen door. If you happened to be 20 cents short, no problem. The store offered charge accounts, and judging by the dozens of charge slips hanging around the front counter, everyone’s credit was good.

If you weren’t in a hurry — and this was a store not meant for a quick dash in and out — you could catch up on the latest news, weather, politics and the state of the world in general. Because it was a general store. Disco, Franklin, Hegg and Beach all had one. They have long since closed and the Disco store was torn down, but the other three store buildings remain.

Disco

Only a few buildings remain in Disco, located at the junctions of highways C and X in the town of Albion. And neither the Bee Gees nor John Travolta had anything to do with its name. This spot on the map had no name until the government decided in 1871 to establish a post office there.

Franklin

The Franklin Store was built in 1909 or 1910. One account I found says it was built by Iver Pederson who also had a store in Ettrick, but another account says it was built by August Yahr, a Norwegian immigrant who had previously worked for Pederson. August and his wife Josephine purchased the store in 1914 and operated it until 1959, when it was sold to the Fosses.

Hegg

Located at county highways S and C is Hegg, named after Hans Christian Heg (they added a G to the town name), a Wisconsin antislavery activist and Civil War veteran who died after being wounded in the war. A post office was established in 1873 and the present store building dates to 1888.

Beach Corners

I can find little about the history of the store, other than a photo from the Trempealeau County Historical Society taken in the 1920s. I don’t recall the store being open in the 1970s, but it was purchased by Christa Berg in 1982 and for many years was the location for her yarn and crafts store, which closed a few years ago.

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