Memorial Day Weekend will also be a celebration for the Virgelle Mercantile as it will be 40 years since he first opened the doors. Don told me he remembers his first customers Ruth and Angus Merrill and myself. He even remembered what we bought.
While driving to Virgelle I thought of the history I had found on their web site. The town and the Mercantile were "founded in 1912 by Virgil and Ella Blankenbaker along the tracks of the Great Northern Railroad near Coal Banks Landing on the Upper Missouri, Virgelle (pronounced ver-JILL), served as a shipping point and commercial center for homestead...
