Davis General Store is a family business started in the Davis family home in 1890 and still actively owned and operated by the Davis family. The two-story brick building that stands today was built in 1908 at 8940 Old Statesville Road. Today, people can stop in Davis General Store and buy ice-cold soda, overalls, gardening tools, Moon Pies, and more.
Davis General Store was founded by brothers Silas Winslow (S.W.) Davis and Charles Spencer (C.S.) Davis. The current two-story building was built in 1908 in the Croft Community, on NC 115 between Charlotte and Huntersville. Croft was originally called Alexandriana; the name was changed in 1896 in honor of Croft Woodruff, a wealthy landowner.
Croft represents a time when Mecklenburg County was largely rural, and its economy centered on agriculture. It wouldn’t be until the advent of the railroad that Mecklenburg, Croft, and the rest of the South began to see a shift in their economies. The Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio (A.T. & O.) Railroad ran through Croft, and all the community’s major buildings, including Davis General Store, were built around the A.T. & O. railroad tracks.
Railroads brought cheap and manufactured goods much closer than ever before to rural areas. More affordable goods undercut regional monopolies and put many local manufacturers and artisans out of business. Rural families like those in Croft became less reliant on local craftspeople and artisans and more dependent on local merchants who would often extend credit.
Farmers became vulnerable to the credit system provided by local merchants, who required credit customers to provide a cash crop like cotton as security on their accounts. In Mecklenburg County and the South, farmers had to begin switching from subsistence farming, where all the crops they grew were to support the farmer’s family, leaving minimal surplus to sell. Farmers were beginning to cultivate cotton to actively meet merchants’ needs.
This was the economic climate into which Davis General Store was born. The Davis brothers recognized an opportunity as the closest store to Croft was in Huntersville, four miles away. So, in 1890, the Davis brothers opened their general store to serve farmers in the surrounding areas. The two-story building was later constructed in 1908. Davis General Store was immensely popular in the community, as they had a cotton gin, which pressed roughly 500 pounds of cotton annually. That cotton could then be sold directly to mills and cotton brokers or distributed via train.
The railroad tracks were essential to the Davis brother’s business model. The train arrived during the week and was filled with wholesale goods like sugar, flour, and fertilizer that farmers could take and load directly into their wagons from the box car. While farmers loaded their wagons, their families could shop in the general store for things like pins, fabric, lace, ribbons, and needles. The Davis General Store sold wagons, harnesses, shovels, cigars, canned goods, and chewing tobacco. The store was a veritable one-stop shop.
Today, Davis General Store sells things like ice-cold sodas, Moon Pies, cast iron cookware, feed, Carhartt apparel. You can find all sorts of jams and jellies and unique snacks. You can also find pocket knives, candy, soap, socks, a good pair of overalls, and all sorts of locally made treats and goods.
Davis General Store was a true family-owned and operated business within the Davis family. The most recent owner, Silas Davis, was co-founder S.W. Davis’s grandson and co-founder C.S. Davis’s great-nephew. Silas Davis was known to many as the “Mayor of Croft”; he was a local businessman, farmer, and historian. In the Charlotte Observer, Andrew Davis, son of Silas Davis, noted that his father “liked when children came in; he hosted the children down the street at Pioneer Springs Community School and taught them lessons about money and history.” Silas Davis passed away in June of 2023, and his children now run the store, Andrew Davis, Noelle Small, and Lois Ellen Tuttle.
Family member Lois Ellen Tuttle reflects on the family business: “We still serve families that have been shopping with us for generations. Running a small local business means you interact with a customer base that shops with you on purpose and wants that local hometown feeling and interaction. They appreciate our uniqueness, and we appreciate their support!”
