Small town Saskatchewan has lost one of the few general stores left in the province.
Aust’s General Store in the hamlet of Big Beaver closed suddenly on Sept. 10 with a notice on Facebook announcing the closure “with heavy hearts.”
The Facebook notice said a sale will be held at a later date and everything has to go.
The store has been in Big Beaver since 1928 when the railway came. The store has been owned by the Aust family for the last 64 years.
Elsie Anderson, age 96, of Moose Jaw, recalls the store when she grew up in the district.
“It will be missed,’’ said the Moose Jaw resident who has family in Big Beaver. “They will probably have to get the mail at Coronach. The post office kept them going.”
Aust’s has a wood-burned sign above the front door that reads: “If we haven’t got it you don’t need it.”
Like most general stores from the era when they were an integral part of every small town, Aust’s sold a bit of everything — groceries, clothing, hardware, candy, you name it.
Booths in the store were used for coffee and to play cards by local residents — a feature that was common in general stores.
The Facebook notice also asked everyone with outstanding accounts to pay
In the early years of settling, general stores also served as temporary banks, extending credit to customers until the harvest was done and farmers had some cash.
Aust’s is listed on the Tourism Saskatchewan website as an attraction and has been a must stop on the Outlaw Caves tour of the Big Muddy offered by Coronach Tourism.
The store is one of the last businesses left in the hamlet with a population of 10.
In its heyday, Big Beaver was a bustling town serving 2,000 people in the area. Thousands of cattle were shipped by rail from the stockyards every fall.
The town had a concrete plant that manufactured concrete culverts.
And it had a garage, cafe, hotel, grain elevator, several stores and a weekly newspaper.
Copies of the newspaper in the Big Beaver museum display an article quoting a University of Las Vegas history professor’s research indicating notorious robbers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spent time in the nearby Big Muddy badlands. The Sundance Kid sent a post card from Big Beaver.
The Big Muddy is the northern extension of a string of badlands that range all the way to Mexico.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
