Hester Store
National Register Listing
Street Address:
245-345 Thomas Mill Rd., Easley, SC (Pickens County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817739026
Description and Narrative:
Hester Store, built in 1893, is significant as an important example of a country store and mercantile business in the South Carolina Piedmont, one that operated from the last decade of the nineteenth century until the late twentieth century. The Hester Store conveys a significant connection between local farmers in the Dacusville community and the larger agricultural economy of the state. Rural country stores like the Hester Store served as important sources of supplies and credit for farmers and were vital links in the agricultural economy in the decades after the Civil War and through the Great Depression. For many years the store served not only as a place of business, but also as a central meeting place within the Dacusville community. A typical rural example of a commercial gable-front building, Hester Store was the centerpiece of the Hester family's holdings, which included a large farm, saw mill, cotton gin, and grist mill. The Hester family first settled in the Dacusville community in 1813. Michael Washington Hester (1854-1920), one of the many grandsons of the family patriarch, who was involved in both commerce and agriculture, built the store in 1893. Constructed with a steeply pitched, V-crimp metal clad roof, the two-story, weatherboard-clad store features a roughly square-cut ashlar granite facade and a full-width, single story, porch at grade supported by granite pillars. The granite façade and portico were added in 1933. Listed in the National Register February 5, 2013.
Period of Significance:
1893;1933
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Architecture;Commerce
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
February 5 2013
