Whither the Country Store?

Abstract

Although in many parts of the nation there has been a strong trend toward centralization of institutional services in single centers away from rural areas, churches and country stores have managed to survive in the countryside. The history of country stores in a single Kentucky county is examined in an attempt to explain their survival. It is suggested that the country store is an adaptive economic institution, one which continues to exist because of credit. convenience, sociability and economic viability. Fescue County, Kentucky is a classic example of institutional centralization processes. In the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries county, state, and national governments attempted to improve rural country life by making county seat institutions available to small town and farm dwellers. This was a period of institutional expansion when the schools, banks, churches, and various small industries were constructed in small towns around the county. This process, however, was not to continue, and around the 1930's these various institutions contracted with increasing rapidity back into the county seat. Accompanying this centralization were improvements in roads, diffusion of cars and trucks, and development of highly competitive incorporated businesses. Today Fescue County is almost completely centralized not only in terms of its major institutions but also with respect to rural country reference groups. The county seat is where the action is. There are, however, two traditional institutions which have partially resisted this centralization process. These are the country general store and the country church. Through in-depth interviews of country store owners, historical literature, governmental statistics, and actual field surveys. this paper documents the changes in form and function which have facilitated the continuation of the country general store.