Name:  Steed's Store

Date:  1920

Image Number:  UVA Library, Steed's Store

Comments:  The Steed's store, run by C.C. Steed, was a general merchandise store where customers could buy dry goods and household items as well as food for the family and feed for animals.  This store building was built ca. 1910 and has an unusual half-moon shaped roof.  Its big front porch overlooked the road that ran alongside the railroad tracks in Esmont.   When it was constructed, Steed's store was one of five such general stores in Esmont and was adjacent to the Esmont Inn.

Esmont ca. 1910 with train depot at far left, the Esmont National Bank (2-storied building to the right of the depot), and a small store between the bank and the Steed's Store at right.

Mr. Steed wore long black sleeve protectors and was a quiet man.  A customer would go about the store and make note of what he or she wished to purchase.  Mr. Steed would then walk around the store quietly, pick up the items on the customer's list, and then check the customer out at the cash register; in those days, customers couldn't pick up the items they wanted and take them to the cash register as they do now.  During segregation, Mr. Steed was noted for treating black patrons fairly, serving customers in the order they entered his store rather than by racial preference.

The old Steed's Store building (now being renovated) in Esmont, July 2018

Scottsville Museum wishes to thank Maxwell Johnson for his research and photographs on this Esmont community business!

References:
1)  Alexander, Frances, et al.  "From the Monacans to Monticello and Beyond:  Prehistoric and Historic Contexts for Albemarle County, Virginia."  Garrow & Associates, Inc., May 1995; p. 104.
2)  Denby, Peggy Purvis.  "Esmont As I Remember It."  Friends of Esmont, 2018.  See:
Friends of Esmont.
3)  Jones, Bernie, et al. "Interview of Ruth Ward and Nancy Luck on August 14, 2001, by Bernie Jones and Deva Woodley of the Race and Place Project. (Oral History)."  Race and Place, Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 2001.

Copyright © 2018 by Scottsville Museum

Top Image Located On:  UVA Library, Steed's Store, see: Steed's Store

Middle Image Located On:  Library of Congress, see: Town of Esmont photo, 1910

Bottom Image Located On:  MJ39cdMJ01