SHARE The Big Creek Country Store stands in Waynesville, N.C., on the east end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The owner, Kelly Sutton, renovated the store in 2015 after ending her teaching career and now operates the store full time. (CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL) Kelly Sutton holds her dog Chipper and stands with her mother, Darlene Scott, in front of the Big Creek Country Store in Waynesville, N.C., on Thursday, May 26, 2016. Sutton is now the owner of the store on the east end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The store has been in her family since 1927. (CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL) Kelly Sutton worked on restoring the Big Creek Country Store in Waynesville, N.C., between 2012 and 2015. The store is on the east end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and has been in her family since 1927. (KELLY SUTTON / SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL) Kelly Sutton, owner of the Big Creek Country Store in Waynesville, N.C., looks at a history book on Mt. Sterling on the store's porch on May 26, 2016. Her store is on the east end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and has been in her family since 1927. (CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL) Related Photos Photos: Family roots keep country store running

By Morgan Simmons of the Knoxville News Sentinel

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. — If location defines the authenticity of a country store, then the Big Creek Country Store is as real as it gets.

The store is at the Big Creek entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Waterville, N.C. The Appalachian Trail is one mile away, and during the summer the nearby fields attract elk and black bear. Cataloochee is 16 miles away on the other side of Mount Sterling, and Davenport Gap, where the A.T. exits the Smokies, is just up the road.

Big Creek Country Store was built in 1927, just a few years before the Smokies was established as a national park. The original owners, Mack and Etta Caldwell, supplied the local community with everything from cattle feed and hardware to clothing and tobacco. Today, the store is owned and operated by Kelly Sutton, the Caldwells/ 30-year-old great-granddaughter.

Big Creek Country Store sells camping supplies, heat-treated firewood, cold drinks, canned foods and glass bottle decorations that Sutton makes herself. Hikers, horseback riders and tourists are regular customers, but Sutton also caters to the Mt. Sterling community, where she and her family have lived for generations.

On weekends she sets up the projector, pops popcorn and hosts movie night inside the store for family and friends.

"This is my home place," Sutton said. "I literally grew up in this old building."

Mack and Etta Caldwell ran Big Creek Country store until 1957. Kelly Sutton's mother, Darlene, inherited the store in 1964, and for years she leased it out. In the 1980s the store closed, and the building began to deteriorate.

In 2012, Kelly quit her career as an elementary school teacher in Charlotte, N.C., to return to the family fold. Her father recently had died, and she needed a break.

Last year she decided to resurrect the family store. The building's exterior was replaced with hemlock boards milled from local trees that had been killed by the exotic hemlock woolly adelgid. The room where her great-grandparents lived was turned into a porch, and while removing the walls, she discovered scrip — paper currency — that had been issued by one of the logging companies that operated up the Big Creek drainage before the park was established.

The Big Creek Country Store reopened last summer.

"It was either tear it down or fix it up," Sutton said. "My life was broken when I came home, and this building put it back together."

The Big Creek Country Store's remote setting at the foot of Mount Sterling poses a few challenges. The nearest elementary school is 30 miles away in Maggie Valley, N.C., and to restock the shelves with food supplies, Sutton has to shop in Asheville, N.C., an hour away, because wholesalers won't deliver to her doorstep.

In the coming years Sutton hopes to add a shower, bathroom and laundry house to better serve the northbound A.T. thru-hikers who stop by in the spring on their way to Mount Katahdin, Maine. She also envisions a food truck, shuttle services, and perhaps a building where local bluegrass musicians can play.

She's also saving up to buy a propane fireplace that would enable the Big Creek Country Store to remain open all winter.

"We're just trying to accommodate people who come to the Smokies, whether they're hiking, horseback riding or visiting Cataloochee Valley to see the elk," Sutton said. "We also give directions to Gatlinburg because a lot of people who end up here are lost.

"I came home because I was burned out on teaching in the public school system. I wanted to slow down and enjoy life. I needed to get back to my roots, to the healing power of this old store."