White Elephant Emporium

 Fabulously funky stuff.

It’s not a new story. 

You grow up in a small town. You leave, see the world. Maybe you come back to visit family sometimes. But living here again? Pass.

“I left Pittsburg at 22, never thinking I’d come back,” Stephanie Watts said. “I just had no desire. It wasn’t in our trajectory.” 

But then it happens.

“The further away I got from Pittsburg, the more I started comparing other places to Pittsburg. The downtown, the Christmas lights, the homes, the parks. I mean, even Kiddieland. I never saw another Kiddieland like our Kiddieland.” 

You probably saw this coming: Stephanie Watts is back.

And she’s helping to transform Downtown Pittsburg with her eclectic shop, White Elephant Emporium. Described as “fabulously unique home decor,” the store features a wide range of vintage furniture, art, lamps, knick knacks and really just a whole lot of neat stuff. 

Watts has a background in merchandising and interior design, and it shows. The shop is constantly changing with the seasons and provides a whole new experience every time you go in. Every item has a past and a story, and Watts said her goal is to use her store to help the pieces write new chapters.

“I give pieces a whole new life,” she said. “I bring them in here, present them in a new way, and take something old and make it feel more modern and fresh. Vintage items, to me, have so much character. They have a story to tell, and sometimes it’s simply about how you merchandise them. 

“My background is in merchandising, and this store represents everything I’ve done in the past coming together. It’s the culmination of what I’ve been trained in and the fruits of all that work.”

Watts said she knew the store and its model – only being open on select dates – would be new for Pittsburg. It’s kinda funky … maybe me along the lines of something you’d see in Fayetteville or Tulsa and Springfield. But Pittsburg needed something like this, she said. The downtown area needed it.

“I knew something felt missing downtown … some vibrancy,” she said. “This was a few years back, before COVID, before Pitt State started moving downtown, before a lot of changes took place. The question was: how do you get people back downtown?

“We started out in an old warehouse and simply tested the waters. At the time, it was my sister-in-law and me, doing what we already knew how to do and were good at. We had both done freelance interior design, so it felt like a natural segue. Still, we weren’t sure how Pittsburg would receive us. But it turned out people loved it.”

Shortly after opening in that old warehouse, the store moved to its current location at 804 N. Broadway.

“Moving to Broadway was the best decision we could have made,” Watts said. “There’s something so sweet about our downtown.”

Watts and her family have lived across the country and around the world. She’s “sampled everything” from large cities to small communities. And while she enjoyed her time outside of Pittsburg, she found there really is no place like home.

“Coming back to Pittsburg was like a big hug,” she said, “and a big hug I desperately needed. And I say this all the time … I truly couldn’t have opened this store anywhere else. For one thing, the cost would have been enormous. Pittsburg offers financial accessibility—it’s feasible—and it gives me something just as important: time. I can be-bop all over town. In Orlando, I spent at least an hour a day stuck in traffic, and that constant frustration wears on you.

“Moving back here was the biggest breath of fresh air.”

Now back and rolling along in her business, she’s hoping to encourage and guide others who have similar dreams.

“We have amazing people here,” she said. “We just have amazingly dynamic, talented people, and they don't even know it half the time. If you have an idea, don't be afraid to ask for help from people that are down here. You will find people here are just so willing and so kind, genuinely kind, and want you to do well.”