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1865 – present
The general store is the town's continuous trade, and its line can be walked keeper by keeper. Norman S. Miller opened a large dry goods store in 1865 — invoices totalling $9,000 in 1880 — serving also as township trustee and postmaster (the gazetteer headers name him postmaster in 1880–81; by 1884–85 the postmastership had passed to G. A. Bettcher), and by 1900 the census calls him "landlord," likely leasing downtown commercial property. Houser Brothers, general store and dry goods: its founding year stands in conflict — the nomination gives 1872, C. D. and Daniel Houser establishing it; the Chapman frame carried 1875; this build's register carries the three readings 1872, 1873, and 1875 within one Chapman chapter, and none is chosen. Its directory life runs "Houser Bros, general store" (1880–81, 1882–83) and "Houser Bros & Bettcher, General Store" (1884–85) — the furniture-and-undertaking Bettcher joining the store's name for that edition; Daniel W. Houser is separately the Manufacturing Company's secretary-treasurer, and a Harvey Houser reappears a generation later in Price & Houser hardware, name continuity printed, kinship not stated. The grocery lines beside them: S. B. Cullar's "Grocery, Provision and Produce Store" (atlas 1875, settled 1865), running as Cullar & Olenger (1880–81, 1882–83) and Cullar & Warner (1884–85); M. R. Cole, grocer, across atlas and all three gazetteers; Greenville P. Cherry, "justice and grocer" (1882–83); Cleve & Ceslie and Flagler, Teel & Co, grocers in 1884–85 only; John Whitinger, grocer in the patrons list and a Home Manufacturing director in the atlas. The next generation builds in brick: Henry B. Worster, contractor and builder (settled 1854), built the Worster Building at 100 North Main in 1892 to house a general store and ran it as H. B. Worster and Son — Polk 1916–17 in full: "Worster H B & Son (Henry B and James), genl store." The Pearse brothers built the Pearse Block at 131 North Main in 1913: Polk prints "Pearse Bros (Charles E, Frank C, Stephen & Del A), genl store"; the block's north storefront carried full-line dry goods, gentlemen's furnishings, carpets, and wallpaper under Frank and Charles Pearse, the south a grocery and general mercantile under Wakefield and son Stephen Pearse. The Starr Grocery at 119 North Main (built 1909–1912, advertised in a 1912 town newspaper) doubled as a restaurant by 1917. The 1940 telephone directory's grocery bench, with Hoffman Brothers, is five deep: Day Brothers Grocery; Ivo's Grocery and Meat Market; Mack's Grocery and Meat Market; the Royal Blue Store. The Harvey Dime Store stood in the Pearse Block storefronts in the 1950s and expanded in 1960 to both storefronts. In 1960 the trade turned: "a large grocery store opened outside the district," beginning the drift of trade to the town's edges — the firm unnamed by any carrier reached, a named gap. By 1967 the yearbook advertisers are the Community IGA Market and Wilcox Supermarket ("Tender-Treat Meats and Name Brand Foods… Hours 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. daily except Sundays"); which of them, if either, was the 1960 store is not stated. Present day, from the town's links page: Bob's Country Store, 306 South Reed Street; Lucky Mart, 203 North Main; and Dollar General at 105 South Jefferson Street — the chain's own store directory printing "105 Jefferson St.," the variance carried in the register.