General stores were the center of economic activity in many small communities in the late 1890s and early 1900s, a place where seed and crops were bartered or sold and everything people were not able to make or raise at home or on the farm could be found. The general store was the place to purchase a bar of soap, nails and hardware, thread or broad cloth for making clothes for the family, hats and hat pins, candies, toys and other treasures. Storekeepers were leading citizens of their communities. They extended and denied credit for food, supplies, and other goods against farmers’ next crop. No rural community could hope to become a village without a general store.