The Stuckey's story began back in the early thirties during the Great Depression when a tall, leathery Georgian named W. S. Stuckey, Sr. began selling a little nut common to the South, the pecan. Times were hard and jobs were scarce. So, one day while searching for a job in the town of Eastman, Georgia, Stuckey was told by one of the warehousemen that he could put Stuckey to work but could not pay him. He suggested that Stuckey buy pecans and sell them to the warehouse. He gave Stuckey several little bags of pecans with the varieties marked on the outside so Stuckey would know what he was buying.

With a $35 loan from his grandmother and an old car converted into a truck, Stuckey began traveling from house to house buying nuts. If he used all his money too early in the day, he would wait until the bank closed and then start writing checks. He would sell the pecans that night and be at the bank when it opened in the morning.

That first year, he sold about $4,500 worth of pecans. By 1933, a local banker was willing to lend him $200, and in 1936, the banker was backing Stuckey with $20,000. Stuckey's pecan sales reached $150,000 during this time.

A roadside stand was set up in 1936 and 1937 to take advantage of the winter tourist season. Sales totaled $2000-3000 each season. To supplement the limited line of shelled and unshelled pecans, Stuckey's wife Ethyl turned out batches of candy from her kitchen. She would also help buy the pecans and manage the warehouse. Eventually, she knew the many varieties of pecans almost as well as her husband.

The little wooden roadside stand couldn't contain our founder and his energies for very long, and by 1937 business was so good that Stuckey sold his roadside stand to a farmer for use as a henhouse, and built the first retail store in Eastman, Georgia. Two other stores in Georgia were soon built, and in 1941, Stuckey built the first store outside Georgia in Hilliard, Florida

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