7729 Benjestown Rd , Millington, TN 38053(Shelby County)

The floors are wooden, uneven, and creaky. The walls are decked out with taxidermy, snake skins, photos, and artifacts of antiquity. The shelves are stocked with homemade Mennonite jar goods from Backermann’s Country Market. Make yourself comfortable in a booth or take it easy at the picnic tables on the front porch where the neighborhood gathers. On any given visit you might find a mix of cyclists, hunters, anglers, disc golfers, ornithologists, the mail carrier, schoolteachers, ministers, firemen, law enforcement, road trippers, singing nuns, a quick cheeseburger on the way to the delivery room (ask for more stories!), all depending on the rhythm of the season and the magic of the Store. It is a place for everyone, a circus of the arcane, and each day holds its own miracles!

The store is fantastically located between the front and rear entrances of the Meeman-Shelby State Park and Eagle Lake Refuge Wildlife Management Area, a combined 18,000+ acres! Shelby Forest’ is year after year one of the most heavily trafficked parks of all 53 parks in the Tennessee State Park system, around a million! Organized hikes, runs, bike races, nature symposiums, and outdoor recreationists frequent the Forest year-round.

There is nowhere else in North America, for that matter the entire world, where you can find over a combined 18,000 acres of canopied hardwood forest only 15 minutes from the downtown of a major metropolitan area with over half a million population, all bordered to the west by the Mighty Mississippi. Deer, turkey, otter, beaver, fox, bobcat, rabbit, and squirrel are plentiful throughout the forest. This pristine area is a favorite for bird watchers, offering over 200 species of songbirds, waterfowl, shorebirds, and birds of prey, including the American Bald Eagle.

Most definitely well worth the however-far-out-of-the-way-you-need-to-go to add the Shelby Forest General Store experience to your bucket list. We’re certain you will find the store a refreshing and pleasant reminder that there is an alternative to the cookie-cutter corporate chain option at the opposite end of the spectrum.