The General Store celebrates 175th anniversary Posted: June 2, 2006 This year marks the 175th anniversary of the Rabbit Hash General Store. This historic milestone has even more meaning considering the fact that this continuously operated business in its original building remains alive and well in Boone County, Kentucky, the fastest growing and most highly developed county of all 120 Kentucky counties. This dubious county designation does not bode very well for the continued preservation and stewardship of one’s past history and cultural heritage. Seventeen year-old James A. Wilson became the first proprietor of the General Store in 1831. The building itself was initially a co-operative endeavor by the local Grange, an early agricultural organization and society composed of local farmers and yeomen all across the United States of America, organized and nourished by Thomas Jefferson. Initially the store was built as a local warehouse to serve as a depository for the local farmers’ produce and products until the next down-bound steamboat stopped and loaded the goods for the down river trade. Reciprocally, off loaded goods would be stored there for the appropriate recipients to pick up and haul away. As the steam packet trade became more regular and scheduled, the farmers had less need for a place to store their goods indefinitely, and the building better suited a mercantile purpose and use. Besides operating the store, James A. Wilson also conducted a ferry boat operation on the same site, which continued uninterrupted until the ice of 1945 destroyed the last boat. Not many places or sites in Boone County can boast of a 175th anniversary. There are no local government buildings that old; no other businesses; no schools; very few private residences. Maybe a couple of county roads and a few native Boone County churches. Back in 1973, the county as a whole celebrated it 175th anniversary as the 30th established Kentucky county (there are now 120) with much pride and pomp. The only downside to this milestone was the fact that nobody knew what to call it. Every one remembered Boone County’s Sesquicentennial (150th) and were looking forward to Boone’s Bicentennial (200th), But what is the 175th anniversary called? There were no official Latin words or names established for this particular designation. Congratulatory letters from President Richard Nixon and Kentucky Governor Wendell Ford simply referred to it as Boone County’s 175th anniversary. But Boone County Judge Executive Bruce Ferguson went the extra mile when he declared the hope “that this Quinseptumcentennial” would “put a new emphasis on our history and especially the preservation of that history.” To this day, there is still no official word for a 175th anniversary. However, there have been attempts at coining an official moniker. A search of the literature of today provides two equally popular contenders for the official name; the 20-letter Terquasquicentennial and the 28-letter Septaquintaquinquecentennial. Neither one is genuinely accepted or embraced by linguists or scholars. All we know is that the ancient Latin-speaking cultures didn’t care much for the quarter or the three-quarter of a century milestone, just the fifty or the one hundred mark. So we’re not going to get hung up on the proper terms either. Besides, in Rabbit Hash we go by dog years anyway, which makes this our 1225th anniversary, or our Millenialquasquibicentennial. And that’s what we’re goin’ with. Throughout the rest of 2006, join us in celebrating and commemorating the Rabbit Hash General Store’s Millenialquasquibicentennial by submitting your personal story or experience or memory of Rabbit Hash to the site below. All entries will be recorded in the Rabbit Hash Historical Society’s archives and revisited in 2031, the store’s bicentennial. Be sure to visit our Rabbit Hash General Store store to order your official Millenialquasquibicentennial souvenir items and fashions. This is an unprecedented celebration and event in all of North America. There has never been a Millenialquasquibicentennial celebration on this continent before, and it will be a long time until the next.