ARTHURETTE GENERAL STORE
I made many trips up the Tobique and was always struck by the location of an abandoned building in the middle of Arthurette.
The old place looked like it had been a store at one time, but it was now shuttered and empty and was also situated in a spot on the road that, if you weren’t paying attention, you’d drive right through the front of the building. It was that close to the road.
And then, a couple of years ago, the old place was torn down and completely removed…it’s just an empty spot now.
Along our journey of evolving this news gazette, talking to people and businesses, every week I’ve gotten to know more about our history and our local residents and characters.
Last week I found out the story of that interesting old building when I got to chatting with Bill McNeil at the Arthurette General Store.
Bill’s store is one of the outlets that carries our gazette, so I stop in there every two weeks to drop off the latest issue. Bill happened to be in last week and he filled me in on some of the history of the place.
That now demolished building had been the second home of the original Arthurette General Store. The business was begun back in 1917 by Holland Giberson, who was Bill’s great uncle.
All Gibersons supposedly descend from John Giberson, a Loyalist who emigrated north during the Revolutionary War.
This reminded me of my recent chat with Gailen Drost at the Bath SaveEasy, whose ancestor Peter Drost, a Loyalist, also headed north to Canada during that same war.
The original Arthurette General Store was a true general store….it carried everything the local residents might need from meat, produce, groceries, nails, hardware, clothes, fuel and so on.
In fact, because of the mill that provided good local jobs, Arthurette had enough of a business district to have two general stores!
Now, as we’ve all seen with the noxiously spreading cancer of big box stores, corporate greed and globalization many small stores simply cannot compete and must close.
Except for these little random oases tucked away in our hinterlands like Arthurette….and these are the kinds of places that add character, flavor and color to our communities!
Although he was born in Ontario, Bill’s parents moved back here when he was a lad. His mom was a local gal , a Giberson. Bill’s father was from Cape Breton.
In 1957 Bill and his wife Iris bought the general store from Uncle Holland. The original store was farther down the road before they moved to the now torn down spot pictured in the picture above in 1968.
You may have heard that real estate truism about three things being most important for the success of any business and they are “location, location, and location.”
This turned out to be especially the case for Iris and Bill’s store when the original Arthurette bridge was torn down and relocated farther down the road, past the store, back in 1978.
The original bridge was located just before their store, if you were headed towards Plaster Rock from Perth, so that everybody crossing the bridge basically turned in their parking lot. Since they were already in the parking lot, most travelers stopped and shopped!
When the old bridge was taken out and relocated Bill says their business dropped by an astonishing 40 percent!
Interesting, don’t you think? The same people are still driving by the store just like they’d always done but because they were no longer turning in front of the store they no longer bothered to stop.
This seems to provide some interesting psychological insights into us humans…
Bill and Iris toughed this situation out for another 18 years before they built the latest incarnation of the Arthurette General Store in its current location in 1994.
Business picked up again, immediately, by 40 percent!
The store has convenience store goods, a gas bar, an Agency Liquor License and a number of food staples. There’s no fresh meat these days, but you can still find stuff to make supper with here! Stop in to say hi the next time you pass that way…
Arthurette General Store
1540 Route 109
Red Rapids, NB
506-273-2322
