By Don Bradley
Exit the 4-lane nearing Lone Jack, drive a mile or so on a winding road and you’ll come upon Cockrell Mercantile Co.
It’s the rare place where you can buy a top-quality muffin pan in a building that used to be a mechanic’s garage.
Charmingly so.
Or some other kitchen specialty item in what used to be a barn. Other out-buildings and a couple of old houses are also part of the store that specializes in kitchenware and gourmet foods. A cottage acts as a boutique with clothing, jewelry and sweet smelling lotion. It’s in the throes of expansion to eventually include dressing rooms.
“It’s a village of shops,” owner Sarah Tangblade said. “The town of Cockrell has become the store.”
Take U.S. 50 east out of Lee’s Summit toward Lone Jack and watch for the Cockrell sign. The place has to be a prime stop on a Lone Jack daytrip.
Cockrell is not much of a town anymore. It started with a post office in 1886 and lost that in 1902.
Like Sarah said, Cockrell Mercantile is now pretty much the town.
One might be hard pressed to find another destination-shopping place, complete with cicadas singing in the trees, like it around Kansas City.
Sarah has been told Cockrell Mercantile is the largest seller of Fiestaware in the Midwest. She says the store takes pride in having the “hard-to-find” item.
Need a new gurgle pot? A red silicone cake pan? Or a jar of fig walnut dressing?
So, how do all these customers even know about this place…rural eastern Jackson county…down a blacktop…woods and creeks…house across the road has a rocking chair on the porch roof?
“We do social media and some billboards, but mainly it’s word-of-mouth,” Sarah said. “If people can’t find it anywhere else, they come here. We get a lot of girls day outs.”
The business was started by the same founders of Pryde’s Old Westport. Sarah started working there when she was 16 and later moved to the Cockrell store.
Last November, she and her husband, Eric, took it over. The family lives on the property.
Eric used to work in surveying. He now says he’s in charge of landscaping at Cockrell Mercantile.
Better than the old 9 to 5?
He smiled. “Oh, yeah.”
The main building, the old Cockrell store, is filled to the brim with specialty kitchen items, gadgets, cookware and rows of sauces and canned foods. How about a quart of vanilla peaches? Horseradish pickles?
Go out the side door and walk across the way to the Morton House for baking ware — pans, vanilla extracts, candy molds, bread bins and mixing bowls.
Nearby is the Cockrell Cottage, a boutique gift shop, where you can find Vera Bradley and Baggallini bags, clothing, candles and tea sets.
Then there’s Fiesta Cottage, a former house that now is home to the bright, colorful world of Fiestaware.
The grounds, green and blooming, are a park-like setting. In the middle of June. A first-timer can only imagine the place with snow on the ground.
For more information, go to cockrellmercantile.com
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