The Robertson's have been in business since 1946, when V.B. "Tup" Robertson opened his first store in downtown Marietta. In the early days we had just one smokehouse that would hold about 15 hams. The small frontier store on I-35 just north of the Oklahoma-Texas border has been a decades-long popular stopover for hungry travelers, but the heart of the trade - smoked hams, old fashioned beef jerky, and other smoked meats - has not changed much since Robertson began smoking meats as his father had done in the early 1900s. "The ham is smoked the old-fashioned way. We don't hurry it - we just slow-smoke it." Today the smokehouse plant is 31,000 square foot facility that sits behind the highway store. There, meat cuts are seasoned and cured for a week, then sliced, smoked, and packaged. During the process, hams are hand rubbed with cure, removing as much water as possible, unlike many commercially processed hams that are heavy with moisture. As far as smoke goes, nothing beats hickory wood - it simply adds a better flavor.