Entertaining Exhibits & Nostalgic Items
By Barbara Arnstein
The Concord Mercantile store and the Heritage Museum at 17 Franklin St in Springville offer entertaining exhibits full of information about Springville’s most famous residents and a store that seamlessly mingles antique items on display with nostalgic items you can buy. The store recreates the atmosphere of a store in the 1890’s, thanks to the shelves full of artifacts such as old-fashioned tools and farm items, and items including replica cans of vegetables. There’s a barrel holding old-time Coke bottles and an early manual typewriter. The nostalgic items you can buy include hand-carved walking sticks, homemade jams and pickles, and handbags made from various fabrics. You can also buy interesting books, magazines about antiques, and postcards of Springville buildings. A pot belly stove combines the old days with the new, since its “fire” is from glowing light bulbs.
The Heritage Museum features recreated facades of several Springville buildings, a recreation of a medical office, and more, including a film about the greatest achievement of Springville’s most remembered hometown hero, George Schuster. In 1908, he drove the car that won “The Great Race”, a 22,000-mile journey from New York to Paris The film includes his 1958 appearance on the TV game show, “I’ve Got a Secret”, along with the car (a Thomas Flyer). Since the four panelists failed to guess his secret, he won the maximum possible prize of $80, which was then worth about $800 in 2022 dollars. On that show (which you can watch on YouTube), the host mentions that at one point, one of the rival teams (there were six cars in the competition) unfairly tried to stop Schuster’s team by buying all the available gas in the area. Luckily, he outwitted them by persuading a ship’s captain to give them gasoline.
The other two hometown heroes included in the Heritage Museum are Ralph Britton Waite, the dentist who revolutionized dental anesthesia (not to be confused with Ralph Waite, the actor who played John Walton, Sr. on the TV show, “The Waltons”); and the lyricist Jack Yellen, who wrote the words for many popular songs, including “Happy Days Are Here Again”.
The store and museum are only two of the historical sites run by the Historical Society. Around the corner from the store/museum, at 93 Main Street, the Warner Museum celebrates the life of the college football coach, “Pop” Warner, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame. (Fun fact: his tombstone had a helmet placed on it) Behind the Warner Museum is the Carriage House, where you can see racing buggies, a sleigh, a firemen’s reel, and more from the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. Lastly, the Lucy Bensley Center, at 23 North Buffalo Street, is an excellent place to do research on local history. It has original and digital copies of the Springville News and the Springville Journal, and other papers, covering over 150 years of local history. It is open Wednesdays, from 9am-2pm (The email address: lucybensleycenter@gmail.com).
On Tuesday evenings from 6:30pm-8:30pm., musicians get together and play in front of the Concord Mercantile store. The Mercantile musicians include guitarist Lee Weiderman, violinist Don Tober and fiddler Jean Maul. “Other people join in”, said Joyce Abbott, the President of the Historical Society. “We need volunteers so we can keep the store and the museums open longer.”, she added. “Right now, the Concord Mercantile store is only open from 11am-2pm on Saturdays.” For more information, go to the Facebook page or call (716) 592-0094.