Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Thompson Store
Thompson barn
Thompson Barn Home Décor on Tekoa’s main street features items inspired by and collected for a hundred-year-old barn south of town.
The Thompson Barn now stands alone after an adjacent house was burned for a Tekoa Fire Department drill.
A new business opened in downtown Tekoa April 10, an offshoot of another which has been in the making since last fall.
Thompson Barn Home Décor had its grand opening in the former office of the Standard-Register newspaper on Crosby Street in Tekoa.
The store’s name comes from a hundred-year-old barn that’s being refurbished for events at the Jim and Amy Thompson property five miles south of town.
The couple began working on the Futter Road structure last year, soon after buying the land around it and inviting the Tekoa Fire Department to burn down an adjacent old house as a drill.
The barn will host its first event June 5 for a Tekoa High School graduation party, then a wedding June 27. From there eight other weddings are booked and two anniversary parties – stretching into next summer.
In deciding whether to embark on this project, the Thompsons talked to Donovan Chase, co-owner of C&D’s bar and grill in Tekoa, who had catered Amy’s daughter’s wedding held last year at the Brotherton building.
He assured them, saying not a week goes by without someone asking him about country barn rental properties for events.
Thus, work got underway, with the Thompsons buying decorative items for the barn’s walls and other areas, including 15 12-foot church pews they got from a man near Palouse.
“Then somebody said, ‘you should open a shop’,” said Amy.
That began what eventually led to the store.
Looking into the idea, Amy talked to the owner of a vacant storefront on Crosby – the town’s Main Street – who offered a deal.
“I want my hometown to have good storefronts to it,” said Tim Flock of Spokane, who grew up in Tekoa and published the former Standard-Register newspaper out of the building from 1987-97. “I wanted to make sure it was maintained as a commercial space. Hopefully Amy will make a good go of it.”
The former newspaper site once served as the parish hall for Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tekoa.
Amy’s preparation for a store also allowed for extra space for Thompson Barn items.
“It was getting a little cluttered here with the stuff I was collecting,” Amy said.
Aside from working at the store and the barn, Thompson also spends one day per week as a nurse practitioner for the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chewelah. She previously worked at Whitman Medical Center in Colfax where she was known as Amy St. John.
Her late husband, Shane St. John, died in 2010 in an avalanche while snowmobiling.
Barn work
Birds laid claim to the barn for many years before the Thompsons opened the doors again. After loads of straw were hauled out – by husband Jim and others – Amy took a pressure washer to all of the rough-cut wood. Next, work began on restoring the frames for nine small windows while a new larger window was added.
Then the ladder to the loft was replaced with a stairway.
Next ceiling fans were installed, then outlets for hanging lights to come and more.
The Thompsons plan to next cut out the center of the floor of the loft, leaving a horseshoe-shape where tables could be placed – overlooking the main floor.
Aside from the self-standing church pews, an array of mixed-match tables and chairs – along with hay bales and boards – make up seating options for 150.
Décor choices for the walls include old wood wagon wheels, wirecage lights and more.
“Lots of doilies and burlap,” said Thompson. “There’s nothing on the wall that stays on the wall.”
In the barn’s old machine shop they created a separate bride’s room.
A wide barn door on the front opens, along with another in the back.
The structure is not insulated, although propane heaters allow for fall events.
Amy said they will re-paint the trim on the outside but otherwise the peeling paint of the bygone structure will remain.
Because the barn had not been used for so long before the Thompsons bought the surrounding land, the county-maintained road that lead to it had little traffic.
That changed last fall.
Eventually, the Thompsons called the county Public Works Department and let them know they were tearing up the road with trucks going out to the barn for the restoration.
A crew arrived a week later to add gravel and reinforce the road.
Amy Thompson, the daughter of an Army pilot, originally visited Tekoa/Farmington with St. John, who was from the area.
Farms were new to her.
“I had to ask my husband, ‘What is a lentil?’” she said. Amy married Jim Thompson – a fourth generation Tekoa farmer – in 2013.
Thompson Barn Home Décor hours are Thursdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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