Old Carson Store

Duane's take

The marker on this one tells the story, and I'm just here to pass it along the way it deserves to be told. Now, Edwards County isn't the kind of place that hands out superlatives lightly, but the Old Carson Store has earned a few. G.

M. Carson, merchant, builder, man of commerce, put up a general store on this very site back in 1904. And for years, if you needed something in Edwards County that nobody else was selling, you came to Carson.

We're talking about caskets. For years, his was the only establishment in the entire county where you could see to that particular necessity. Make of that what you will.

Carson's store was the place you came into this world needing, and the place you'd eventually leave it needing too. Now, by 1920, Carson decided it was time to build something that would last. And so between 1920 and 1921, he raised the first stone store in town: solid, deliberate, the kind of structure that says I am not going anywhere.

Turns out, he was right to build it that way. Because 1927 came along, and with it, a tornado. Not a near-miss, not a close call; a tornado that killed seventy-two people right here.

Seventy-two. That number sits heavy, and it ought to. While that storm tore through and took lives, the stone store stood.

It withstood. And when the wind finally quit and the silence came back, the building was still there. It's still there now, still owned by the Carson family.

Some things get built to outlast the worst day imaginable. This one did.

What the marker says

First stone store in town; built 1920-21 by G. M. Carson, merchant. His 1904 general store (on this site) was for years only establishment in county selling caskets. Present store withstood 1927 tornado that killed 72 here; is still owned by the Carson family. (1968)