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This abandoned general store and filling station is located at the north end of Longstreet Road and is not far from a 1950s schoolhouse that has been tentatively identified as the Mount Olive School. I’m not sure if the name is correct; it may have been South Twiggs. It was definitely an elementary and middle school, though the term “middle school” wasn’t common with rural institutions at the time.
Stores like this hardly ever made their owners rich, but they were often well-loved local gathering places. Anything you didn’t hear about at church, you probably heard here. Most of these stores were built in very simple forms and I think that’s why a lot of them have been forgotten.
I usually identify them as general stores and not grocery stores. The reason I identify them as general stores is because they sold more than groceries. Batteries. Light bulbs. Any number of sundries. But remember, there wasn’t a nearby Walmart or a Dollar General at every crossroads fifty years ago.
So interesting as my father Claxton Carden grew up in this area in the 1920s , family in area some I think still but not sure.
I am friends with the daughter of the man that had this store. He lived also not far from the store. I’m sure she has many stories to tell.
Please have her contact me, Patty. Thanks!
Thanks for your comments on general stores Brian. They were wonderful institutions. My grandfather died when I was 2, but my grandmother, mother and her siblings told about the 2 story general store he ran in Oakwood GA from early in the century until it burned in 1940. Among the offerings were not just the usual staples, but also hand tools, some furniture, small farm implements, hoop cheese you cut yourself, ice cold bottle ”dope” and coffins! They also offered a punch board for the customers who were ”bad to gamble”!