When Brooks Shaw's Old Country Store opened in 1965, it was a museum...not a restaurant...not a Village...not even very big at all. But in 2007 the Old Country Store celebrates 42 years and a lot of changes for this little “Mom and Pop” operation dedicated in 1965 to “Mom’s Home Cookin’ and Pop’s Old Country Store” that later grew into one of Tennessee's Top 10 Travel Attractions.

The story begins with a man named Brooks Shaw. He was a country boy from Providence, Tennessee about 20 miles west of Jackson who worked in a tiny country store in his younger years for 50 cents a day and all the hoop cheese he could eat. Years later, when he was the president of Kelly Foods, a canned meat company in Jackson, a heart attack almost took his life at the age of 32. A wise doctor suggested he get a relaxing hobby not realizing that the "hobby" he took up would one day lead to a collection of over 15,000 southern general store antiques. A friend of his, Paul Jobe, gave his three antiques that started the collection and led to several years of antiquing across the countryside with his wife, Anne, and their two children Clark and Deborah Anne.

When the collection overflowed, Brooks and Anne Shaw decided to start an antique museum in 1965. It was called Brooks Shaw's Old Country Store and was located on Airways Boulevard in Jackson right across the street from Kelly Foods. The original location is about 2 miles from Downtown where Old Country Auto is located today. Norwood and Joyce Jones were the original Storekeepers who ran the operation day to day. It wasn't opened as a restaurant but rather as an antiques museum that offered a small lunch counter. The Store originally offered cold cuts, cheese and cracker plates, pickles and such but quickly evolved into a popular local eatery for locals and travelers alike. Later on, an old student union building from Lambuth College was added on to make a full fledged restaurant. Sadly, Mr. Shaw passed away in 1971.

In 1978, the Old Country Store created a new travel experience with a move to a location named Casey Jones Village for local railroad hero Casey Jones. Located right off I-40, it combined the landmark Old Country Store and the legendary Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum. The Shaws, Anne and her children, Clark and Deborah, were pleased to add Norwood Jones and Lawrence Taylor to the Store family as partners and stockholders. In 2002, they added Marty Jacobus, Bruce Haltom and Dr. Keith Williams to the Old Country Store ownership family. Each year hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world visit Casey Jones Village making it one of the state's Top 10 Travel Attractions. Y'all come!

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