Photos and other materials documenting Dick's Country Store (Churubusco, NY), which TAUNY recognized as a Very Special Place.

From the outside, Dick DeCosse’s store looks like many others in North Country small towns, a simple frame building with gas pumps out front, posters, and neon beer signs in the windows, with a scattering of pickup trucks and cars in the parking lot. Inside, local people can find milk and bread, cigarettes and lottery tickets, just like any other modern convenience store. But that’s where the similarities end. For, as the highway signs nearby say, this store features 1000 guns and 500 guitars [by now a modest estimate!], and has unwittingly become a mecca for hunters and musicians for many miles around. Any day and any time of day, you might find a group of people, men and women and kids too, in a pickup session of bluegrass and country tunes, joined by Dick when he’s not working with customers or the store’s books.