Fun Owensboro, KY Artifact Found at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Virginia
If you've ever been to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, you likely have noticed that the walls are full of vintage decor. But how cool is this? A Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Virginia, in addition to giving its customers a big taste of down home cookin', is serving up some Owensboro, Kentucky to its guests.
About six years ago, Paula Clark, who lives here in Daviess County, was traveling with her husband. They stopped at the Cracker Barrel location in Chester, Virginia. Chester, by the way, is less than half the size of Owensboro. Appropriately enough, if you look up Chester on Google Maps, the Cracker Barrel location gets flagged!
See it? It's just north of the John Tyler Community College.
Paula and her husband were sitting at their table and waiting for their food. Like a lot of us when we visit a Cracker Barrel location, they were looking around at all the decor and everything hanging on the walls. Coincidentally, they saw a vintage piece of home right next to their table.
That's an ad from Owensboro Wagon County for the "OwensborO" Platform Spring Ice Wagon.
Now, I'll admit. I vaguely recall hearing something about the fact that Owensboro used to be home to a wagon company, but I didn't know much about it. So, I hopped online to do some quick research.
According to Wikipedia, the Owensboro Wagon Company was established way back in 1884 and was one of the "largest and most influential wagon companies in the nation." We apparently "set the standard of quality" at the turn of the 20th century and the Owensboro Wagon Company reportedly manufactured eight different wagon styles and sizes. If the ad in the Cracker Barrel photo is real (and it seems to be), the Platform Spring Ice Wagon was one of them and it was perfect for ice and cold storage.
But how cool is that? It's so random that a Cracker Barrel in Virginia would have a framed photo of an ad from a vintage Owensboro company. And how cool is this? The Clark family's history with that particular photo continues.
Paula's son, Nathan Kirchgessner, lives in Chester. He actually popped into the Cracker Barrel last weekend and he was texting his mom while they were waiting for their table. Paula told him to look around for the picture and guess what? It was still there. In fact, Nathan ended up getting seated at a table right by it. So, he took a photo and texted it back here to Owensboro.
Paula says, "I thought it was so cool! What are the odds of it still being there and that they may have been sitting where we were?"
Here's Paula's full interview about her really cool and fun find.
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