Ah Toy's Store has supplied the sleepy Top End town of Pine Creek with everything its residents have needed for 80 years.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 5 minutes 37 seconds 5 m Rural Reporter: End of an era at Pine Creek Download 2.6 MB

The family-run general store has stored uranium, weighed crocodile hides, and kept miners in boots and beer.

Eddie Ah Toy joined his father in the shop in January 1955, straight out of high school.

"I thought, I'll come down for a few years, and that few years turned into 60 years, I'm afraid. But that's a choice of life," the third-generation Pine Creek Ah Toy said.

It is a choice that has given Mr Ah Toy a ring-side view to the historical pioneering town's changing fortunes.

The town has ridden the boom and bust cycles of mining since gold was discovered there in 1871.

But it was hit especially hard by the rapid decline of the iron ore price in 2014.

Ah Toy's Store in 1992. ( Supplied: Northern Territory Library )

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 6 minutes 15 seconds 6 m Eddie Ah Toy reminisces about running the family store for 60 years. ( Dan Fitzgerald ) Download 1.4 MB

So it was a hard day for the family when they closed the door for the final time in March this year.

"When something has been going for 80 years and been a family business for all that time ... and me being involved for 60 years, it's quite a sad era to be honest," Mr Ah Toy said.

An exodus of more than half the population made it unviable to keep the store open.

"That is what life is all about isn't it, moving on," Mr Ah Toy said.

A lifetime of change in Pine Creek

Moving with the times is nothing new to the innovative Ah Toy family who adapted their services to suit the changing needs of the town for 80 years.

Mr Ah Toy's grandfather migrated from China to Australia during the 1880s gold rush.

He worked on the Darwin to Katherine rail line before setting up shop in what is known as the 'old bakery', in Pine Creek, 300 kilometres south of Darwin.

The Ah Toys moved the general store to its current site in 1935.

Eddie Ah Toy recalls the shop's heyday in the late 1950s.

Before bulk petrol one of his jobs was to truck fuel to the then operational uranium mines.

On the return journey he would cart drums of "yellow cake" [uranium ore], which his family would store on the petrol ramp at the shop.

"In those days it was just done up in 44 gallon drums with a cap screwed on ... there was nothing to say radioactive, or no fence, no security, no nothing. They'd wait until we had about 50-odd drums of the stuff and arrange a semitrailer," Mr Ah Toy said.

"We didn't wear gloves in those days and there was a bit of yellow stuff spilled on the drums, but I guess I'm still here to tell the story."

Eddie's father Jim Ah Toy in front of Ah Toy's Store in 1974. ( Supplied: Northern Territory Library )

The store was also pivotal to the animal skin trade.

"In those times there was crocodile shooting and buffalo shooting so we sold core salt and they used to bring the hides to the store.

"We've still got the old scales we used to weigh the hides and we would send them down to Sydney Collier Watson to be processed."

But it was the miners who were the lifeblood of the general store.

"In those days the miners and all those people had to buy all their own gear, like their boots and trousers and shirts and whatever they needed. These days the company that employs them supplies all those things."

Mr Ah Toy said the switch to fly-in fly-out working hurt the town.

"Of course while they are away from the area they buy their beer and cigarettes and whatever they need and bring it back for the next swing. So really the fly-in fly-out has not been good for the small towns."

He may have closed the store but Mr Ah Toy has no plans to leave Pine Creek.

"I was born here so I'll end my days here I suppose," he said.

"I tell you, I am trying to catch up with 20 years worth of work that I didn't manage to do while the shop was going."