Scottsville Candle Company

08/27/2026

RIP an absolute legend! 🦋💛

Today, we join so many across the country in sharing our deepest condolences at the passing of a true American icon, Dolly Parton.

Dolly was more than a country music legend. She was a songwriter, entertainer, philanthropist, businesswoman, and, perhaps most importantly, someone who never forgot where she came from or the people around her.

One thing we support around here at The Heart is a woman in business.

Here in Scottsville, we have a special little piece of Dolly’s story. Dolly once visited Scottsville as part of Dollar General’s 40th anniversary celebration in 1979. This photo captures that visit at our local Dollar General, a moment in time that reminds us that even someone as famous as Dolly took the time to visit our small town.

She spent her life making people laugh, giving back, lifting others up, and reminding us to dream big no matter where we come from.

Also taught us that your outfit can never be to bold and pink is always a great choice.

Her music touched generations, but her kindness and generosity may be the greatest part of the legacy she leaves behind.

Scottsville was lucky to have a little piece of her story, and we are grateful to remember her through moments like this one.

Dolly, we will always love you🩷

(photo Credit to: Frank Empson / The Tennessean)

08/22/2026

A new journal entry is available now. ✨

For our latest Visiting Our Neighbors entry, we’re heading north to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to visit a house whose story was interrupted almost before it began.

Construction on Riverview at Hobson Grove had already begun when the Civil War reached Bowling Green. Work stopped, Confederate forces occupied the area, and the unfinished home was put to uses its owner, Atwood Hobson, never intended.

The Hobson family would wait years before finally calling it home.

But war would not be the last time Riverview’s future was uncertain. More than a century later, fire left the house uninhabitable, demolition threatened to erase it completely, and a group of local preservationists stepped in to make sure the story did not end there.

The House That Waited: Visiting Riverview at Hobson Grove explores a home shaped by war, family, fire, preservation, and more than 150 years of survival.

This is exactly what Visiting Our Neighbors is meant to do: occasionally take us beyond Allen County to explore the historic places our neighboring communities have preserved and the stories they still have to tell. 💛

The House That Waited: Visiting Riverview at Hobson Grove

Available now through The Scottsville Journal.

Link in the comments.

08/21/2026

A little Journal celebration. 💛

The Scottsville Journal has officially been on Substack for a little over a month, and I wanted to celebrate with a special offer for new paid subscribers.

For a limited time, you can join The Scottsville Journal for 20% off your first three months.

Paid subscribers get access to the complete Journal archive, including occasional subscriber-only deep dives like The Warehouse That Built a Retail Empire: The Story of J. L. Turner & Son, while helping support the research, archival work, and preservation behind the stories we share.

The offer is available through September 10, 2026 at 5:30 PM.

If you’ve been thinking about subscribing, this is a good time to jump in. ✨🫶🏻

Link in comments 💛

08/18/2026

In case you missed Sunday’s journal entry… 👀

Before Dollar General became a national retail name, it was J. L. Turner & Son, a Scottsville wholesale company operating from a brick warehouse on East Main Street.

The Warehouse That Built a Retail Empire: The Story of J. L. Turner & Son is one of the most extensive features published by The Scottsville Journal so far, built from decades of local newspaper coverage, historic records, National Register documentation, and Cal Turner Jr.’s own account of his family and the company.

The story follows the Turners from their earliest business ventures through the founding of J. L. Turner & Son in 1939, wartime operations, the Scottsville Canning Company, the expansion into retail, and the development of the Dollar General concept.

This feature is available exclusively to paid subscribers of The Scottsville Journal.

Subscriptions are $5 per month or $45 per year, and include access to the full Journal archive, including occasional subscriber-only deep dives like this one. Paid subscriptions also directly support the archival research, newspaper access, source comparison, and time that goes into keeping Scottsville and Allen County history documented and accessible. 🤍

If you’ve been thinking about subscribing, this is a pretty good place to start.

Link in the comments. 🫶🏻

08/16/2026

✨A new journal entry is available now. ✨

Before Dollar General became one of the most recognizable retailers in America, there was J. L. Turner & Son, a wholesale dry-goods company operating from a brick warehouse on East Main Street here in Scottsville.

This week’s Journal entry is one of the most extensive stories I’ve researched so far.

The Warehouse That Built a Retail Empire: The Story of J. L. Turner & Son traces the Turner story from James Luther Turner’s earliest years in business through the founding of J. L. Turner & Son in 1939, its rapid growth, wartime operations, the Scottsville Canning Company, the expansion into retail, the creation of the Dollar General concept, and the generations of people who helped turn a Scottsville company into a national success story.

The story was reconstructed using decades of local newspaper coverage, historic records, the National Register documentation for the J. L. Turner & Son Building, and Cal Turner Jr.’s own account of his family and the company. Along the way, I found details that complicate some of the versions of this story that have been repeated over the years and give us a much fuller picture of what was actually happening here in Scottsville.

This particular entry is available to paid subscribers of The Scottsville Journal.

I want to be thoughtful about that. The Journal is not becoming entirely paywalled, and I will continue publishing stories that everyone can read. But some of these larger features require considerably more research, archival searching, source comparison, writing, and editing than a typical entry. Making an occasional in-depth feature subscriber-only helps support the time and resources that allow me to keep doing this work while continuing to make much of our local history freely available.

If you’ve enjoyed the stories we’ve been sharing and would like to support the continued research and preservation of Scottsville and Allen County history, becoming a paid subscriber is one of the best ways to do that. 💛

And for our paid subscribers, I wanted the first of these deeper features to be something special.

The Warehouse That Built a Retail Empire: The Story of J. L. Turner & Son

Available now through The Scottsville Journal.

Link in the comments.

08/09/2026

✨A new journal entry is available now. ✨

Today’s post is arriving a little later than usual because it also happens to be my birthday. 🎂

Before Scottsville had a courthouse square, storefronts, factories, or a railroad, it had water.

The Public Spring helped determine where Allen County’s new county seat would be established and went on to shape the growth of the town around it. For generations, it served residents, supported early industry, supplied nearby businesses, and became one of Scottsville’s most enduring landmarks.

This week’s entry explores the story of the spring that helped make Scottsville possible, from the town’s earliest beginnings to the place it still holds in our history today.

What the Water Gave Us: Where Scottsville Began

Read the full story through The Scottsville Journal.

Link in the comments. 💛

08/05/2026

In case you missed Sunday's journal entry...

Long before Social Security and modern welfare programs, Allen County cared for its most vulnerable citizens through a place known as the Allen County Poor Farm.

This week's journal explores the history of one of Kentucky's last surviving county poor farms-from its origins in the 1800s to the WPA-built home that still stands today, and the lives of the people who called it home.

Every building has a story. Some simply take longer to tell.

Link in comments 🫶🏻

08/02/2026

✨A New Scottsville Journal Entry is Now Available ✨

The House the County Built explores the history of the Allen County Poor Farm, the WPA-era building that still stands east of Scottsville, and the people who depended upon the county’s “house of charity” during times of age, illness, disability, and hardship.

Long before Social Security and modern welfare programs, Allen County cared for its most vulnerable citizens through a working county farm. This is the story of that institution, the lives connected to it, and why its history still matters.

07/27/2026

A family recipe is rarely just a list of ingredients.

It can hold the memory of a kitchen, a holiday, a familiar voice, or someone no longer seated at the table.

Use Things Worth Remembering to preserve recipes, family stories, and the memories attached to them.

07/26/2026

✨ A New Scottsville Journal Entry Is Now Available ✨

In 1928, Miss Sallie Edmonds wrote a letter to people she would never meet.

Nearly a century later, we’re honored to share her words exactly as she wrote them.

This week’s edition of The Scottsville Journal is unlike any we’ve published before, a walk through Scottsville as remembered by one of its greatest historians.

📬 Join our email list to receive every new Journal entry.

Still a spark of something timeless. Always a love letter to Scottsville. 💛