Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

B.K. Hodges attends the celebration Saturday at Sheriff Shively's Storehouse. People remembered Shively as a kind and shrewd man.

A line forms outside Sheriff Shively's Storehouse on Saturday as people celebrate its opening as a gateway to the Crooked Road.

FERRUM -- When David Clements was a boy, his grandfather would let him choose between a soda and an ice cream. Every few days he was allowed a sweet treat.

"I had it made growing up in a store," said Clements, who was raised by his grandfather, the late Sheriff Shively, beside Sheriff Shively's Storehouse on Virginia 40 in Ferrum.

Now Clements, a white-haired Rocky Mount man, misses the days gone by and time spent at the store, which long ago went out of business. Saturday afternoon, the lawn in front of the old store was more like Clements remembered it -- a bluegrass band picked tunes, flat-footers danced on a square of plywood and old-timers swapped stories on the store's front porch.

More than 100 people gathered at Shively's on Saturday afternoon following the grand opening of the eastern gateway to the Crooked Road -- the 253-mile-long trail that winds through Southwest Virginia to far Western Virginia, focusing on the region's bluegrass and country music heritage.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Saturday morning at the farmers market in Rocky Mount. Afterward a colorful parade of antique cars led a convoy 14 miles west along Virginia 40 through the rolling green hills of Franklin County to Sheriff Shively's Storehouse.

"This particular store in the '20s, '30s and '40s was the Wal-Mart of this area," said Bobby Radford, a bluegrass musician who emceed Saturday's festivities.

The store sold everything from dry goods and sacks of feed to clothing, Clements recalled. He recalls patrons' wanting to match up sacks to make pillows with, after emptying the feed.

Shively was not a law enforcement officer; Sheriff was his first name. And he was known for helping people in the Ferrum area. Frank Peters remembers Shively's giving neighbors without cars rides to doctors' appointments.

"He took care of a lot of people in the mountains who didn't have much," Clements said of his grandfather.

Peters said Shively was a smart businessman, too.

"In the '40s he would follow the electric company," Peters said. "When they put in power at a house, he would follow behind and sell a washer and dryer or refrigerator."

Linda Stanley of the Franklin County Historical Society said Shively's descendants have permitted the society to open the store as a small museum on Fridays and Saturdays and to promote the venue as a stop on the Crooked Road.

"It is a community history project," Stanley said. "We wanted to show people there are things to do here in Franklin County."

One Saturday a month, there is live bluegrass music.

"All of us have been playing this music -- now the rest of the world is catching on," Stanley said.

On the Net: www.thecrookedroad.org