General stores came into being during the colonial period
for the many pioneers who lived outside urban markets. Early owners of general
stores or mercantiles often began as traveling peddlers who established
permanent locations in settlements where there was a need once they had saved
up enough cash. Others moved west with the specific intent of opening a store
once they got there. This was particularly true in boom towns, such as mining
camps or railroad towns. Frequently, the "peddler" and his
"store" would move along to the next booming community if, and
when, profits declined. In many new settlements, the country store was the
first business established, in which case the town often took its name from
the store or store owner, partly because the store usually stood in as the
local post office. The store owner might also serve as the town clerk,
Justice of the Peace, or undertaker.
The country
store served other roles, as well, such as community center, "exchange
bank", community message center, and as a forum for men in the
community. Somewhere in the premises one might find a sort of bulletin board
for local events, or wanted posters.
Every store was different, but there were similarities from
a front decorated by tin sign advertising that represented tobacco, cigars,
soft drinks, hardware, and more. Most had double doors that opened inward,
and windows filled with notions, jewelry and other women's items to entice customers.
For the men, displays might show tools and boots.
Each visitor was met with dim light, long counters,
rounded glass show cases, and side walls lined with shelves, drawers, and
bins. Buggy whips, horse harnesses, lanterns, pails, ropes and more hung from
the ceiling. Produce, nuts, beans, and nails were stored in bins on the floor
or against a wall. Shelves contained foot stuffs, fabric and sewing notions,
household items, soaps, medicines, spices, crockery and dishes, cartridges
and shells, and small farm implements. Side windows were rare, adding to the
darkness of the interior. The post office, if one existed, stood in a corner
or at the rear of the store.
Stacks of overalls, denim and khaki pants, candy jars,
tobacco, and all manner of other products likely occupied the counter space,
along with the cash register, and possibly a coffee mill, scales and wrapping
paper, leaving barely any space for the customer to set down purchases.
Somewhere inside, usually in the center of the room, a
pot-bellied stove would be surrounded by chairs, a coal bucket and a
spittoon. An empty nail keg might house a checkerboard. Stored along the
narrow aisles would be barrels containing pickles, crackers, potatoes,
candies, etc.
Since many of the customers were share-croppers and tenant
farmers, one store couldn’t provide credit to all who needed it, resulting in
one small town boasting several stores. In Learned, Mississippi, which never
had a population of over two hundred, there are four general stores still
standing, though only one is still in use.
In 1896, the postal service began to offer Rural Free
Delivery (RFD), cutting down on the number of trips a person had to make to
the post office, and therefore the general store. The ability of residents to
receive mail order catalogues by RFD also took away from the store’s profits
as people would mail in their orders. Some alarmed merchants called the mail
order catalogs “town killers.”
Along with mail delivery to rural areas came improved
government built roads, allowing people who owned cars to travel to larger
cities and bypass the local mercantile.
Today only a fraction of these old stores remain and these
stand mostly as museums, antique shops or tourist attractions.
|
Hi Charlene,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the details of general stores. These shops are rare, but so wonderful. I live in a small town with fewer than 300 people, and our only store is a mercantile. The owner's motto is, "If we don't have it, you don't need it." And trust me, it is seldom that you can't find what you came in for.
I always wanted to live in a small town, Carol, having grown up in an LA suburb.
DeleteOh! did you bring back memories! Growing up in a small New England town, that is what we had was a small general store for all our supplies. We would go down to the big city of Springfield to the larger groceries for monthly supplies. When I moved toCalif. in my late twenties, the old Victorian town of Ferndale on the northern coast with all the old style houses and in the center of town was a Merchantile.It looked just like your photos above. They had large glass jars of candies behind the counter, diplay rooms upstairs of the dresses worn back in their day (Cindy would have loved that. I used to buy my Sassafrass(sp)tea there all the time as it taste just like root beer. Thanks for the memoirs!
ReplyDeleteI envy you your memories, Shirl. Ferndale is a great town.
DeleteCharlene, thanks for sharing such wonderful information and photos of general stores. This is a keeper! You've also given me an idea for a post I need to write for Friday on Sweethearts of the West. See you over there.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lyn. I'll look forward to reading your post on Sweethearts of the West.
DeleteInteresting piece. We still have a few of those stores in Oregon. One that used to be near us had a kind of bar on one side, store goods on the other. Unfortunately it burned and when it went, it really went due to cleaning the old wood floors with kerosene. (not proven or charged but everyone knew it was arson by a couple of disgruntled hill type men who abruptly left the country right after the fire) It was rebuilt and still is a kind of country store but with a modern looking building and not the same. It lost its gas pump when the regulations changed and there wasn't enough money to redo the tank to meet them. I think the most fascinating old time store I have been in was in Georgia and hardware with little bins for the nuts and bolts, totally the old way with shelves to the ceiling and full of goods. That was about 14 years ago; so hard to say if it's still there.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to wander through some of those old stores.
DeleteYou'd love this one then, Char. Yoder Country Store. I haven't been there in awhile but got a cool straw hat there as few years back. It carries some of everything.
DeleteChar, I just reposted a snippet from your post on my blog site, Lyn Horner's Corner. This is such a great topic that I recommended it to my followers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lyn.
DeleteThis is the only post of yours I found here. It doesn't seem to be about Taming Jenna but thought I would go ahead and post here since I am here.
ReplyDeletequiltlady110 AT gmail DOT com