‘History geeks’ have new place to shop

An area so rich in this nation’s military history now has a store dedicated to “history geeks,” according to The History Company’s owners.

Co-owner Louis Varnell said The History Company was a business without a building while he taught school and did presentations decked out in authentic re-enactor garb. He was also a consultant to museums and operating the Command Post Museum in Chattanooga.

But Varnell said he “always had the idea of a store to handle and sell historical items” which is what led him to a log cabin just south of Chickamauga Battlefield Park.

Varnell and partners Tony DiMaiolo and Joseph Collins have been open for business six days a week. And just as the cabin is in two counties, mostly in Catoosa but partly in Walker, the shop mixes mercantile and museum.

“Our focus is Civil War clothing, originals and reproductions, and re-enactor sundries,” Collins said. “We are also a military history bookstore.”

That reproduction clothing is hand sewn by Collins, a veteran of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and DiMaiolo, a former Marine, in several grades.

“I’m a thread-counter,” Collins said. “Our uniforms range from off-the-rack to custom tailored. We can do museum quality, or something so you can just go out and play army.”

The quality of work is such that The History Store has been contracted to provide uniforms for the re-enactment at Fort Sumter, S.C., commemorating the 150th anniversary of the initial engagement of the Civil War.

Among the re-enactor community – one that stretches from coast-to-coast and overseas – this Catoosa-based business has a sterling reputation.

But costuming Civil War re-enactors is just a narrow part of the partners’ business plan.

“We’d starve as just a re-enactor store,” Varnell said. “We refer to this as ‘Your one-stop history shop.'”

While the owners are eager to describe how oil cloth hat brims were formed by hand in the 1860s – just as the caps and kepis they stock – and sewn with hemp or cotton thread, they can also describe the particulars of more modern military gear.

Varnell said that except for the War of 1812 The History Store carries something from every conflict from the French and Indian War of the mid-1700s through today’s conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Within the cabin’s confines authentic uniforms from both World Wars share space with fresh-from-the-forge blades and never opened Revell plastic models from years – many years – past.

Pointing to a glass display case, Varnell asked, “Where else will you find holographic gun sights next to flintlock pistols?”

Prices throughout the store range from souvenirs costing less than a dollar to bespoke uniforms with individual pieces priced in the mid- to high-$100s, according to Collins. And the stock is ever changing.

“We are like a military version of ‘American Pickers’ [a television program on the History Channel where treasures are gleaned from barns, basements and junkyards],” Varnell said. “We scrounge around to find new stock – you never know what you’ll find.”

A case in point of the “do you want to see this before it goes into the trash” find on display last week was a World War I uniform bedecked with medals and campaign ribbons and showing no obvious moth damage.

Throughout the small space is an everchanging eclectic mix of items Varnell said should appeal to the “history geek.”

“This is an adventure,” he said.

On a shelf amidst other World War II era canteens was one with a black enameled finish, something only made in limited quantities during 1942. Nearby, a two-volume early edition of Grant’s memoirs occupies space near an edition printed in 1904 for the dedication of the Sherman monument in Washington, D.C.

The three owners hope to grow their business and one day construct a museum of military history in space now occupied by decommissioned Jeeps. But already they welcome the history buffs, dedicated or dabbler alike, to visit online or in person.