We spent a Saturday afternoon travelling throughout this district that includes 74 artists and craftsmen of all sorts and hit the mother lode. We are not just souvenir collectors of cheaply made foreign junk, but appreciate quality items made by local folks that have a story behind them. The first score was quite a surprise. Hidden in the back corner of an art gallery was Ogle’s Broom Shop, a third generation business making brooms by hand from local materials. David Ogle was sitting on a stool stripping the bark from a future broom handle when we walked in. We must have spent the better part of an hour asking questions with him providing the answers interspersed with stories from the past. He was fun, entertaining and obviously loved his craft. Stacy came away with a “double broom”, or twin turbo as he called it, and I got a small one for my workbench. On the way back out through the art gallery we espied a lithograph of David’s grandfather on the wall, labled “The Broom Maker”. Bigger than what we wanted, the owner found a smaller one in backstock so that is coming home to be framed and hung next to the broom. Double score! Stacy found some kind of knick knacky thing that she liked and we were on to the next one. That building housed nine different artisans and we both again found things locally made that interested us. All in all, we visited at least a dozen stores and had a great afternoon exploring and picking up some really nice mementos of our visit here.
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