New life for an old building: antique shop opens at site of Beaman Community Store

BEAMAN- Most longtime residents of Beaman remember the old community store fondly along county highway T-29 fondly, but it’s been nearly 30 years since it closed its doors. That all changed last month when locals Pat Jackley and Rhonda Rego opened Wolf Creek Antiques inside the newly restored facility.

“It had been vacant and in increasingly bad repair, so we decided we needed to kind of address the overall state,” Jackley said. “Once we got into the renovation thing, we thought ‘Well, we’ll have a shop. We’ll have arts and antiques.’… We tried to do a couple of nods to Beaman.”

Jackley and Rego had previously sold antiques on Ebay and felt that a brick and mortar location would be good both for the business and the community. They’ve also hired Ellie Caputo on to join the staff, and since they opened at the same time that Highway 14 was shut down from Highway 175 to Highway 96 for resurfacing—with T-29 as the official detour—they’ve also received a surprising boost in foot traffic by a bit of good luck.

The old Beaman Community Store sign is featured prominently above the cash register, and the retrofitted lights that illuminate the interior come from the old high school gym. There’s a deep appreciation for the history of the town at play, both in the store’s offerings and the building itself, which was remodeled by local contractor LJ Kopsa over a period of about five months. They’ve also revived some products from an old toy factory that used to operate in an adjoining building that’s since been torn down.

Both Jackley and Rego were longtime personal collectors of antiques who decided that selling them would be an outgrowth of their personal hobbies, and Rego added that the store makes it easier to sell papers and posters because she found it harder to ship them through the mail.

As the business grows and transforms, the owners plan to focus on oddities and interesting artifacts that shoppers won’t find elsewhere, with everything from Harry Potter jars to figurines and old advertising memorabilia.

“As we get requests, we’ll try to tailor it to what the customer likes,” Jackley said.

Like most other businesses, Wolf Creek Antiques is encouraging customers to social distance and take necessary precautions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic for the foreseeable future.

“It’s not an overwhelming space, and it’s not real cluttered. So people can come in 20 to 40 minutes and see most of it,” Jackley said.

Wolf Creek Antiques will be open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (641) 366-3370.