S. W. & C. S. Davis General Store
(ca. 1908)
Descendants of the original owners of the century-old S. W. & C. S. Davis General Store still offer a wide variety of merchandise for their customers.
8940 Bob Beatty Rd, Charlotte, NC 28269
Located in Croft, a small settlement on the railroad line between Charlotte and Huntersville, the S. W. & C. S. Davis General Store is Mecklenburg County’s best preserved general store where, true to its name, the local population can still find a wide range of merchandise. Brothers Silas Winslow Davis (1873-1925) and Charles Spencer Davis (1868-1945) established their general store in 1890 but erected the current red brick building later in 1908 to serve the Croft community as a retail store, social center, and post office. Country merchants, like the Davis brothers, controlled part of the rural economy by acting as suppliers, middlemen, and bankers for area farmers.
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Until the 1920s, the goods in the Davis general store were delivered by rail. As various railroad lines were constructed throughout North Carolina in the mid-1800s, it became clear that a line between Charlotte and Statesville held significant promise for investors as a shorter route than existing lines for moving goods between South Carolina to Western North Carolina. The citizens of Charlotte and Statesville approved bonds to finance the construction of the Atlantic, Tennessee & Ohio Railroad (AT&O) to link the two communities. By 1861, the AT&O reached from Charlotte to Davidson; it extended to Statesville in March 1863. But the tracks were soon removed during the Civil War to provide rails for a line between Greensboro, North Carolina, and Danville, Virginia. After the war, the AT&O was reconstructed and re-opened in its entirety in 1871. The reconstituted line became the primary artery for commercial and industrial traffic and therefore development (including such towns as Huntersville and Cornelius) in northern Mecklenburg County during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The Davis brothers were enterprising and resourceful men. In addition to their general store on the AT&O line in Croft, they operated two other stores along the AT&O line, one in Huntersville and another between Croft and Charlotte. Only the Croft store survives. In the early twentieth century, the store’s diverse offerings included groceries and other food staples, clothing, fabrics, a variety of notions (including ribbons, lace, pins, and needles), fertilizer, wagons, and farming equipment. The store also operated a cotton gin that processed some 500 pounds of cotton annually. That cotton would then be sold directly to mills and cotton brokers or distributed via the nearby AT&O line. The store also provided the first telephone in the community.
Following his brother’s death in 1925, Charles partnered with Silas’ son, Silas Washington “Wash” Davis, to continue operation of the store. Wash assumed sole management responsibilities for the general store following his uncle’s death in 1945, later turning over the operations to his own son, Silas Washington Davis, Jr. The Davis General Store continues operations much as it has for more than a century, thanks to the descendants of brothers Silas and Charles.