Modern twist on general store
New downtown business, Miami & Erie Trading Company, has plenty to offer
A business downtown has graced St. Marys the past few months.
That business is Miami & Erie Trading Company LTD and it’s run by Josie Slater and her family.
Slater was on hand Wednesday afternoon for the St. Marys Rotary Club meeting and she walked Rotarians through the journey the Slaters have been on that led them to opening the store.
“I have to go back about 14 years. My husband got a job offer and we decided to move to Ohio,” said Slater. “We wanted a historic home and we also wanted to be between Fort Wayne and Jackson Center. That was St. Marys. We found an old, neglected house. We’ve always loved antiques and historic things. We decided to purchase it and bring it back to her former glory.”
Slater said it took them about 14 years to get the exterior of their home completed and then they began searching for other things to take up their time.
“We were talking about how much we like St. Marys and how it’s been a real, good fit for us. Our daughter’s very happy here,” said Slater. “We also talked about what we missed from places that we lived.”
Slater explained that she grew up in Naples, Florida and from there, moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, both places, she said, that had very vibrant downtown shopping areas.
“We were talking about other downtowns nearby that were doing well and we decided there’s no reason St. Marys can’t be the some way. So we got into the whole mindset to be the change you want to see,” said Slater. “How do we do that? We decided to look into commercial, retail properties downtown. We looked for quite a while. After a few months of wondering, our realtor contacted us and asked us to take another look at another property I had looked at earlier. That was the Koehl Building.”
Slater said they bought the building and shortly
after, created Black Dog Holdings.
“The mission of that is to purchase and restore old buildings in the downtown area and bring life to them,” she said. “And help to improve downtown for everybody.”
Slater said there was a lot that needed to be done with the building including changing the layout, replacing ceiling tiles, putting down new carpet and flooring and painting.
“As we were working, we were really looking forward to getting to work on the other side [of the building] because we saw there was still this amazing upper window still there on the office side,” she said. “By the time we were finished with getting the office side fixed and ready to go, we decided that we wanted to have our own business in that space. Because we’re going to be putting a lot of money and energy into it. I didn’t want to just hand it off to someone else.”
So in mid-June of last year, Slater said they began to tear apart the other side and began renovations on it.
“The demo took us from July to October. We hauled away two 20-yard dumpsters and one 15yard dumpsters full of stuff we pulled from the space,” said Slater. “[We] removed about four or five layers of flooring and I think we spent five to six weekends just pulling up nails from the floor from all the flooring that had been nailed down over the years. We had to have the back-third flooring replaced because it was so damaged.”
When it came down to figuring out what they wanted Miami & Erie Trading Company to be, Slater said they had some things to figure out.
“When we moved in and were setting up shot, one of the things we were discussing was, ‘What do we want this store to be? What are our goals?’ We wanted it to be a unique place that would sort of capture your attention and create a mood,” she said.
One unique part of the store is the mural of historic downtown St. Marys that’s displayed on the back wall.
“I came across a postcard of historic downtown St. Marys and it struck me at that point that I wanted that as a mural on the back wall, as big as it would go,” said Slater. “When you walk in, you just see it, and it captures your attention.”
The store had its grand opening on Nov. 21 and has been welcoming St. Marians and surrounding area residents since.
“Our mission is to feature U.S. goods, artisan items, antiques, art and unique food items,” said Slater. “Things that would be a nice gift for a loved one or just a nice gift for yourself. We consider ourselves to be a modern twist on the general store. Our goals are to help draw people downtown and to provide a oneof-a-kind atmosphere and carry high-quality unique products and to provide excellent customer service.”
Miami & Erie Trading Company is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.