There is a particular country store in Rocky Point, Attala County, Mississippi that opened its doors in the 1840s and stayed open in the same location, under the proprietorship of only three families well into the 1920s. I have managed to trace the ownership through land records and, today, speak with descendants of the original owners to compare notes. Nowadays, if you get off county road 440 and go through about 50 feet of scrub, you can still see the remnants of what I think (or would like to believe) may be its original log foundation footings
Talk about the "old ways" that are about gone, the Country Store is one of them. Looking back, I found among the few remaining records that certify its existence, the Rocky Point Country Store was rich in emotional associations and an essential part of that community's past. It represented the real American entrepreneurial spirit which didn't begin in the big cities. It was located at the crossroads of two country roads, had unpainted walls, a broad front porch leading into the interior, but past which black folk never ventured, prefering as they did to get together out front. I was told by one Dr. William J. Pender, a close friend who passed about six years ago, and who frequented the Rocky Point Country Store as a child in the early 1900s it had a unique smell drawn from the goods they stocked and sold and, no doubt, the patrons. I have looked for years for the store's ledgers. Not a soul knows what happened to them.
Anyone who advocates tearing down one of the few remaining country stores has not learned why people today should look to the past in order to appreciate what our greats once had and what we will never see unless you get waaaaay off the beaten path.
"Remember them, remember them well
Gone forever, to be no more
Memories, Oh memories made only there
At the crossroad country store.
- J. Wiley