"It's the Uneeda biscuit made the trouble... the Uneeda biscuit in the airtight sanitary package made the cracker barrel obsolete... [and it] went out the window with the mail pouch, cut plug, chawin' by the stove." from The Music Man.
The general store, with its cracker barrel is gone but if a contemporary incarnation lives, it's at Main and Kensington in Snyder, where rough hardwood is tamed for use by professional and hobbyist craftsmen for furniture, restorations, pepper mills and pens and anything where wood can hold off the onslaught of plastic. Here one will find no crackers, but a continuous stream of men and women seeking access to lumber and conversation to the accompaniment of screaming blades, bellowing dust vacuums, and the steady hum of the lathe. The activity is varied and intermittent as are the number and variety of people, but the coffee is always hot and fresh.
In attendance are customers with projects at home or on the job, students engaged in various projects, and some whose purpose and presence is unexplained by anything but the coffee and one another. The 19th century ambiance is complemented by the 19th century respect for craftsmanship and skill.
Hello, my name is Dave Elberson. Welcome. Well, I can tell you how I started Buffalo Forest Products. I've been a woodworker for quite a long time and played around with doing woodworking since I was 12 years old. As I progressed into it I needed hardwood lumber and started checking around. A source that I found went out of business and I went to another source that was in the Buffalo area. The gentleman that was there ended up telling me that the wood I needed was "over there in the corner." All the wood was bent, so I went back to him, and he said "well, what you see is what you get." So I figured that if anybody went and started up a business that had a little customer service they'd do well in it. ...And that's pretty much how Buffalo Forest Products started.
I went ahead and started buying some lumber and selling it out of my construction shop and eventually switched over from construction into the hardwood lumber business. Down the road we started teaching classes. We got together with the United Auto Workers and put together a comprehensive program of classes. These classes and as well as programs custom-tailored to your individual needs are now offered to any interested men and women.
If you'd like to get into woodworking, I highly recommend that you just stop in, have some fun, talk to some of the guys, and have a coffee with us.
We're open Monday-Thursday 9-5, Friday 9-4, and Saturday 9-12.