UNIONTOWN – Uniontown Mayor Phillip White was armed with a golden shovel Wednesday while leading a group of public officials in the groundbreaking ceremony of the new, larger Dollar General Department Store.

“This is the first time we’ve had a national chain department store in Uniontown,” White said.

The ceremony on Wednesday was held at the parking lot sitting right in front of the Uniontown Municipal Building because the parking lot will soon be the new home of Dollar General, and maybe a Subway and a Movie Gallery. There were about 40 residents and public officials in attendance during the ceremony.

Perry County Commissioner Johnny Flowers said this was a proud day for the community of Uniontown during his opening greetings to everyone in attendance. Perry County Board of Education Board Member Rev. Clifford Coleman, Perry County Tax Collector Eldora Anderson, and Uniontown City Councilmember Beatrice Turner also greeted the crowd.

“Let me tell the story of how we convinced the people at Dollar General to come to Uniontown three years ago,” White said, “When Bill’s closed, we were set to open a Family Dollar and then a couple of days before they opened their doors, they called and canceled out.”

About 35-40 minutes after they called, a man named Dan Rasmuenson with Dollar General called returning the email White sent to him about a month ago and asked what could he do for the City of Uniontown. White said he told him they wanted a Dollar General in Uniontown and Rasmuenson laughed and White asked him to pray about it.

“He prayed and then called me back the next day and said we are coming to Uniontown,” White said, “The store has been blessed because over the last three years, it has been in the top five best stores in the district.”

Ben Burton, Real Estate Manager with the Dollar General Corporation and Bob Bowling, who owns the land and will build the building said they can almost guarantee two more business coming into the complex with them and they are Subway and Movie Gallery.

“These two companies always follow us around and we’ve talked with them about coming to Uniontown,” Bowling said.

The new building will be about 9,100 square feet where as the old building was only 5,500 square feet, he said. Once the plans are finalized, the construction will began and the store should be ready to go by early spring.