YORK — Online search results show Coleman's Trading Post in historic downtown York is "permanently closed" — but on most weekdays the doors are open and Nancy Coleman sits at a desk on the other side of the store’s tall display windows.
"Well, Google keeps calling me about not being listed, but it’s OK because word of mouth does a lot more than advertising," said Coleman, the store’s owner, operator and only employee.
Nestled between a single-screen movie theater that’s been converted to a church and a hybrid shop selling collectibles and sushi, the family-owned general store on North Congress Street is a relic in a city booming with growth.
Coleman's father opened the business 80 years ago. The faded wooden sign hanging above the entrance was hand cut, letter by letter, using a jigsaw that's still in the back of the store.
A boxy 12-inch television plays something in black and white, while Coleman circles answers in a word search book or finishes a puzzle. This is retirement for the 85-year-old lifelong York resident after a career of clerical work for the Social Security Administration.
Google Search results show Coleman’s Trading Post as “permanently closed.”
Coleman opens the store Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"Usually," she cautioned.
If she has an appointment or something unexpected comes up, the store stays closed.
The stock inside is like a scene from an "I Spy" book — a little bit of everything scattered across shelves, tables and stands.
The top of a baseball trophy lies next to a pair of scissors, a can opener and a bag of sea shells. A wall phone hangs above a collection of wrenches near vintage soda bottles. The store sells blue jeans and houseware, just a few feet away from miscellaneous screws, hinges and nails.
Almost every item is individually priced.
Coleman’s Trading Post in York, South Carolina, sells a little bit of everything scattered across shelves, tables and stands.
Signs warn "Cash only" and "All sales are final," but also promise that all dust is free.
Coleman said customers tell their younger kin the trading post was the city's Walmart before the retail chain ever arrived in York.
The store opened in 1945 as a Firestone Tires store, Coleman said. Years later — but Coleman couldn’t remember exactly when — her dad put the family name on the shop and switched to a general store.
Now, only a few antiques remain with any real value, Coleman said. Instead, the inventory is stray items that haven't sold in the store over the years or new additions brought from Coleman's home.
"I’m trying to get rid of what I’ve got," she said.
That's what Coleman said brought her back into the family business in the first place.
Her parents ran the trading post for more than a half-century — Coleman said her dad was in the store until the day he died in 1992. Same for her mom, who passed away in 2005. When she died, the business shuttered.
Nancy Coleman, owner of Coleman’s Trading Post, looks at black and white photos of the family’s business at her desk inside the store in York, South Carolina. Coleman’s father founded the store in 1945.
For nearly 15 years, the store sat closed, full of products but without anyone to sell them.
In 2019, with nowhere to put all the old things, Coleman said she got a little help pricing some of the antiques and reopened shop.
"It was something I had to do," she said.
Lines stretched down the block, Coleman said, as she let people in seven at a time to pick through the new and old treasures, unearthed after years behind locked doors.
"We had real good days, those few days," she said.
These days, that isn’t quite the case.
Coleman said the store can’t count on business from one day to the next. She’d like to have more customers, but she takes a realistic approach.
"It's just one of those things you have to accept, you aren't going to have someone every minute of the day," she said.
Coleman hasn't considered expanding the store’s hours to when more people might be downtown. Her Saturdays and Mondays are for chores and errands — and Coleman said she’d never open on Sundays anyway.
She's content with her shop, her puzzles and her routine, sitting at the same desk where her parents worked, watching her hometown change in front of her eyes.
"I'm just here," she said.
A day will come when Coleman’s Trading Post closes again. The building will be sold — Coleman isn’t sure what will happen to whatever is left inside, but she isn’t ready to think about that.
"My health is good," Coleman said. "I’m planning to be here a little while longer."