Farmer's Store

Farmer's Store in Hallock (1910).  Note tea chest on left...
[Photo Credit:  Minnesota Historical Society] 

My Mom and I often shopped at the old Farmer's store in downtown Hallock in the 1960's and 1970's.  Even then, it was somewhat of a general store, having a dry goods area where we would sometimes buy fabric and notions for sewing projects.  It still had the wood floors, and the high tin ceiling...

The Kittson County Farmers Co-operative Mercantile Company of Hallock, Minnesota, was incorporated in 1904. The intent of the farmers who organized the company was to cooperatively own and operate “a general mercantile, trading, shipping, forwarding, and commission business; [to engage in] buying, selling, exchanging, and dealing in all kinds of farm produce, supplies, implements, machinery, and other articles of merchandise incidental or necessary in operating and conducting a general store; [and] to buy and sell as much real estate as is reasonably necessary in conducting its business.” The “Farmers Store,” as it was commonly known, began by purchasing the inventory, frame building, and adjacent lots of a general merchandise store owned by C.J. McCollom. 

In 1914 the store needed larger quarters, and a second public corporation, the Farmers Building Company, was formed to finance and manage a new building.  A two-story, brick structure was built in 1915 on the site of the original store.  The Kittson County Farmers Co-operative Mercantile Company rented space in the building from the Farmers Building Company, as did other businesses and individuals.¹ 

In 1956 the Kittson County Farmers Co-operative Mercantile Company and the Farmers Building Company merged to become the Farmers Store of Hallock, Inc., a privately owned corporation. 

Source: Minnesota State University Moorhead Archives

¹ - After posting this, a reader mentioned that a great aunt lived in an apartment over the store for several years...