Editor • Writer • Researcher • Teacher • Public Speaker 

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alex@rafountain.com • R.A Fountain, General Store
252.749.7974 • 252.864.3239

Photo of Alex Albright, August 2020, in back doorway of Smith-Yelverton, by Timothy Duffy

Rear view of Smith-Yelverton building.

Both buildings have four 2nd story windows facing north and four on their front sides facing south.

Smith-Yelverton was built by J.B. Procter of Rocky Mount with bricks made on site in 1916-17. It was originally used for storage for R.A. Fountain, whose general merchandise store shared a wall with Smith-Yelverton. Except for the eight 6′ x 4′ windows facing west on the 2nd floor of Smith-Yelverton, they are virtually mirrors of each other, totaling together nearly 7,000 square feet. I purchased SY in 1996 and RA in 2003. Elizabeth, our son, Silas, and I moved to Fountain in 2001. He graduated from AppState in 2021, a communications major with a sports journalism concentration. After serving a couple of years as sports editor at The Appalachian, he was sports editor at The Mountaineer, in Waynesville, until March 2022. Elizabeth and I are still living in the old R.A. Fountain house (1909), a couple of blocks from these buildings.

The R.A. Fountain / Smith-Yelverton buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of Town of Fountain’s Historic District, which was established in 2015. We’ve recently completed restoration work on the building that included a new roof and historically appropriate windows.