INDIAN HEAD- Resh’s General Store originally started out in the 1800s as the I.L. Sparks Supply, according to Clarence ‘Pete’ Resh. The Sparks family ran the country type market until 1909, and sold everything from horseshoes and feed to fresh meat products to those working in the coal mines. In 1909, two children – one a Sparks and one a Miller – were playing with matches in the upstairs of the store where oil was stored and ended up burning it down, along with 22 other buildings within the coal community. Some of the other buildings included a saw mill, chicken coops and an ice house. Not wanting to waste any time, the store was completely rebuilt and functioning once again by 1910. The store built at that time is the one that is currently standing and is known as Resh’s General Store. Soon after, D.B. Zimmerman of Somerset bought the entire coal community, known as Indian Head, which included the coal mines and the company houses. The Sparks were very involved in the community throughout that time, and in 1927, Charles W. Resh came from a coal mining operation in Bell, Pa., with a letter of recommendation. He was hired by Zimmerman to run the store, and ran it until Zimmerman died just two years later in 1929. Around that time, Richard K. and Andrew Mellon of Pittsburgh bought the coal community of Indian Head and kept Charles Resh on as the store manager until 1940, according to Pete Resh. In 1940 the coal mines shut down and the Mellons didn’t feel it was in their best interest to stay on in Indian Head and they offered to sell the store to Charles Resh. When he said he didn’t have any money to buy the business, the Mellons assured him that they would make it possible for him to buy the store with no money down, so he purchased the store. Resh ran the store as a family business with his wife, two daughters and son Pete Resh. Pete Resh worked for his father until the 1960s when he bought the family business and continued the tradition by running it with his wife and children. At one time they were licensed to slaughter livestock and process it. ‘We butchered cattle and hogs and processed deer in the hunting season,’ he said. They were basically an ‘everything store,’ making ice for the campgrounds, and selling such diversified items as plumbing supplies, groceries and meat products. ‘When we ran the store we always had the motto: ‘If you don’t see it, ask for it,” said Pete Resh. ‘The tape that we used to wrap around the meet said, Ô20,000 different items.” The Resh family attribute their loyalty of the mountain residents to ‘the accommodations we provided as well as just being helpful to the community.’ ‘I enjoyed the people,’ said Pete Resh. ‘We lived in an apartment right behind the store and we were there for the people if they needed us.’ Pete Resh said the mountain people were extra good to the Reshes. ‘But we tried to be good to them too,’ said his wife Maxine Resh. ‘What goes around comes around.’ In 1986, their son Chris W. Resh and his wife Valerie purchased the store after a career in mining engineering didn’t seem to be the direction he wanted to go in life. Currently there are three apartments behind the store that are rented out and most of the food and meat products come from Alfery’s and SuperValu.

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