After months of hard work and planning, the Union Mercantile Company opened its doors to the public Aug. 21.
Joined by friends, Union Chamber of Commerce members and town council members, Benny and Susan Belk cut the yellow ribbon, signifying the completion of their dream.
Union Mercantile Company boasts a wide variety of goods made by Mississippi artists and craftsman including cloth diapers and spit clothes, hand-crafted stoneware, homemade greeting cards and artisanal soaps and candles.
“This is a day of celebration,” said Union Chamber director Sherry Harrison “On behalf of the chamber, I want to congratulate the Belks on their accomplishment.”
Mayor Wayne Welch, who also spoke at Tuesday’s ribbon cutting, said the Mercantile is a great opportunity, not just for the Belks, but for all of Union.
“A few months ago, Benny contacted me, and he said he was going to buy the building and renovate it,” said Welch.
Welch said Union owes the Belks a big thank you for taking on the enormous task of renovating one of the old downtown buildings. He said he hopes others will build on the Belks success and bring new businesses of their own to the area.
“I want to thank them for coming down town,” he said. “I think this will give us a start, and I think they deserve a round of applause.”
Benny Belk, however, said the credit should go to his wife. She was the brainchild behind Union Mercantile, he said.
“My wife was the one who’d come up with it,” he said. “We saw this old building here and just decided to restore the building and put a store in it.”
While his wife was the one who came up with the idea for the Mercantile, Benny also played a huge part. He was in charge of renovating the building and getting it in usable condition for his wife’s store.
The building the Belks selected was built sometime around 1915, Benny said, adding that he was unsure of the exact year it was built. With a 100-year-old building, he said he and his wife had to do a lot of work to bring the structure back to life.
“We had to take the main wall down and rebuild it, restructure, rebrick the outside,” he said. “It was a major undertaking.”
The majority of the work, Belk said, was done locally, with the help of local contractors and workers.
“We done most of if ourselves with people we had around here,” he said. “Local help.”
Of course, Belk said, the renovations aren’t fully complete yet. There are still a few little items on his checklist. However, he said, the bulk of the work has been done. The rest, he said, can wait for another day.
