During my eight childhood years in the Little Houses, the country side in rural Macon County was peppered with country stores.  I have mentioned the fact the Aunt Willie and Uncle Raymond actually opened a store during that time.  Uncle Raymond’s parents had owned and operated a store perhaps a quarter of a mile east of the store that Uncle Raymond opened.  And just beyond that, Mr. Albert Reynolds owned a store.  And there was another very small store west of Segrest Lane, where the “Big Road.” Thus, there were four country stores in very close proximity to the little house.  The closeness of these stores reflects the lack of transportation.  Many people had to walk to the store.

In another series of essays, I will be writing about the Shorter Public School.  It served the population of whites living on the west side of Macon County.  I would meet my wife to be—Betty Menefee—when I started the first grade at Shorter.  Her Dad ran a store next to her house.  He also operated the “rolling store.  His store was located near U.S Highway 80.  There were at least four other stores in close proximity to his store. U. S. Highway 80 traversed Macon County east to west, and the Shorter community was located on that Highway.  I remember at least 13 stores, including a “Truckstop,” on or near Highway 80 during that time.  The Shorter School served other local communities that had their own names.  There were 6 or 8 stores in Milstead, 3 or 4 in Hardaway, and 2 or 3 in Chesson.  So, as I said, the area served by the School was peppered with country stores.  There must have been 30 or 40, during my eight years in the Little House. 

The stores began to thin out in the fifties, and rapidly disappeared in the sixties and seventies.  A number of factors were involved in the decline.  First, a lot more families owned vehicles, and could travel further to make purchases.  Secondly, roads were upgraded.  U. S. Highway 80, was upgraded during the fifties.  But then Interstate Highway I-85 was constructed in the sixties, taking a lot of traffic off of Highway 80.  Traffic that might have stopped and shopped earlier moved on through.  But most important of all, the agrarian economy was changing.  Many of the stores had been operated either by landowners who had tenants, or by individuals who made a business of financing the subsistence farming operations.  In short, during the first half of the twentieth century, these stores were an important linkage in the rural social system.  The change brought significant changes in person-to-person relations.  This change was particularly significant for race relations, which were also affected by other factors as well, notably the Civil Rights movement and Voting Rights Act.  Local community was significantly weakened by these combined factors.