Wampum General Store (1905)
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Return to Main Street. Sitting at the corner of Main and Academy Streets at 132 East Main Street is a building that began as Wampum General Store. It offered most household items to the residents of Lincoln County. It has also existed as a retail outlet, department store and pharmacy. Built around 1905, at the same time as many of the surrounding buildings, the storefront was originally brick with key stoned lintel and granite detail.
This two-story stuccoed-brick building at the southwest corner of East Main Street (128-132) and South Academy Street was erected between 1902 and 1906, when there was a tremendous surge in the construction of brick buildings. Between 1911 and 1921, 124 East Main Street was built as an addition to the original building. In 1916, the Wampum Department Stores became the Abernethy and Thompson Store, which, in 1921, became Efird's Department Store until the 1930's. When Efird's vacated the building, it became a retail drugstore, which it remained-under several different owners-until recent years. During the 1940's and 1950's it was known as Lincoln Cut Rate Drugs; subsequent to that it was simply Lincoln Drug. In the mid-twentieth century, the building also served as a community meeting place, with a large dining room and kitchen on the second floor.
The first block of East Main Street includes a variety of establishments as it has since before the 1920's. Some notable residents have been Ramseur Hardware (110 East Main), which was in business on the south side of the street for 97 years, First National Bank on the south west corner, Childs-Wolfe Drug Company and Bob Hinson's Garage, both on the north side.
