Leatherwood Trading Company
Leatherwood Trading Company is here today because of an arts and crafts business my mother and father started in 1971 called Leatherwood Junction! The business was started the year I was born in Morganton NC and was mainly leather goods and dried flower arrangements sold at local stores and craft sales! I ended up even helping build dried flower crafts later on to help where I could!
Leatherwood Trading Company is a conglomeration of lots of different things that our family loves! Comics, Trading cards, Antiques, Toys, Classic Cars, Bluegrass Music, Instruments, Movies, Posters, Artwork, Coffee, and anything that is collectible. We opened in 1988 when I was a senior at Shelby High School, in a 350-400 square foot office in the Downtown Shelby Mall. In 6 months we had outgrown that and needed more space and moved to our 232 South LaFayette Street store front where we enjoyed being for about 5 years. After that we again needed more room as we could not keep up with the demand for comics after the Batman, Blade, Spiderman, Xmen movies came out and brought a resurgance in the comic world.
We moved to the 'big store' at 1 West Warren Street, where we had a 4500 square foot comic shop, pool table and video game arcade. After a year we opened the back of the building, another 5000 square feet, for the Olde Tyme Courtsquare Opry Bluegrass venue. Over 600 shows with some amazing artists in the bluegrass field (check the "Opry" Link at the top for more information about that!) played at our quaint and cozy little stage. Local radio stations played shows that were recorded live later in the week and were a huge hit on the stations. After being in business for just under 20 years, in 2008, we decided to sell the building and take a break. We do still sell lots of different things on our eBay Store which you can get to here (Leatherwood Trading Co eBay Store). It is still something we consider about doing again in some form or another.. and who knows.. maybe we will! Stay Tuned!
