BIG STONE GAP, Va. — A PERSON just passing through Big Stone Gap may not notice the corner drugstore on Wood Avenue with the fading sign, its windows dark and hollow like so many others in these rural coal towns. But for people who live here in the heart of central Appalachia, the Mutual Drug Cafeteria was a community hub, an extension of the family kitchen. It’s where residents could fill a prescription, pick up an oil lamp or a strawberry huller, find a plastic pirate sword for the school play and get a good cup of coffee with a plate of pork chops, soup beans, pickled beets and blackberry cobbler.

The store closed last week, having been sold to a franchise, a fate many shops in small towns are facing.

I learned a lot about people in places like the Mutual, as I was raised by a family who believed that shopping local was as important as going to church.

I found comfort in the store’s dark paneling, the creak in the floor, the aroma of kraut and franks, the first names of everybody from the pharmacist to the cooks. My grandparents drove 30 miles past chain pharmacies to get medicine here. The pharmacist’s daddy was a lifelong neighbor and family friend, after all.