Boones Mill store plays Trump card

The red, white and blue Trump Town sign hanging high upon a former Boones Mill church is as prominent as a sign can be without being lit by neon. But in case drivers passing through town somehow miss it, there’s also a 15-foot cutout of a smiling Donald J. Trump leaning up against the building, which once was home to Boones Mill Christian Church and, later, Freemasons before transforming in 2020 into a retail store packed with merchandise celebrating the 45th president.

It’s a spectacle so grand, locals bring their out-of-town friends and relatives, brags Trump Town owner Donald “Whitey” Taylor. On a Friday in August, Susan Whitaker of Rocky Mount and her friend Louie Carbaugh, who was visiting from California, came to marvel at the shop at U.S. 220 and Bethlehem Road. “I’ve never seen a Trump store around L.A.,” Carbaugh says. 

Boones Mill Town Manager B.T. Fitzpatrick doesn’t believe Trump Town has made a significant impact on tourism in the area. “It’s pretty much been the same, other than the fact that some people just come by just to see it,” he says.

However, there have been some complaints about the dozens of Trump signs found on the lawn of  Trump Town. Not long after the Trump-themed store opened, town officials sent Taylor a letter noting that he was violating the town’s sign ordinance.

“We have not taken any code enforcement action on [Taylor] because, and this is where it gets kind of complex, his signs are his merchandise,” explains Fitzpatrick. “So, if I make him take all his signs down and put them inside his building, then I have to go to all the other businesses that have outdoor merchandise and tell them to do the same thing.”

Taylor, 74, also owns Franklin County Speedway, where he built a reputation for boosting racing attendance by staging pig races, mud wrestling matches and wet T-shirt contests. To increase foot traffic at Trump Town, Taylor set up a pen outside the store for three donkeys (dubbed Kamala, Hillary and Pelosi) but later rehomed them after deciding the smell might drive away customers.

Even without burros, business is good, says Taylor, who won’t disclose revenue. “I’m eating really good out of this,” he says. “I eat steak, even though … [the price is] so high with Biden in office.” 

Trump Town’s four part-time employees have sold dozens of pairs of $199 gold Trump sneakers, but hats and flags remain the store’s bread-and-butter, notes Taylor, who says the store saw between 60 to 90 customers an hour immediately following the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump. 

A proud attendee of more than 50 Trump rallies, Taylor claims to have spoken with the former president on three occasions.

Trump, Taylor tells customers, sent his helicopter pilot to scope the store, but the U.S. Secret Service vetoed the visit. (Asked for comment, a Secret Service spokesperson states that the agency “has no record of a request for former President Trump to visit Boones Mill.”)

Regardless of the presidential election’s outcome, Taylor, who is currently running for mayor in Boones Mill, thinks demand for Make America Great Again ballcaps won’t be diminishing anytime soon.

“This store will still sell merchandise 20 years from now,” he says.