Ogle—They, I think, are probably the oldest. An Ogle started the first
store here, back before the Civil War. The Ogles have ways been the
merchants of the Smokies.
Charlie Ogle is the head Ogle today, and he runs the general store that
is one of the sights of Gatlinburg.
As business grew they kept building on more additions. The store rambles
and juts around all over the place. It has separate grocery, shoe,
hardware, women’s-wear departments.
You can buy things here you can’t get even in Knoxville—provided
Charlie, or his son, Earl, can locate them. They say you can get
anything here from a hairpin to a threshing machine.
So I put them to the test. I asked if they had “G. Washington” coffee,
which is the powdered kind you just stir into a cup of hot water. That
Girl carries it so she can have her morning coffee in hotel rooms. Not
one grocery in ten has it, we’ve found.
But Ogle’s came through. They had it all right.