625 Main Street
J. A. Byrd Mercantile
Constructed about 1910, the J.A. Byrd Mercantile building represents the commercial history of a small rural town. Built as a general merchandise store for Julian A. Byrd, who also founded the Farmers and Merchants Bank next door in the early 1910s, Byrd’s main customers came from the large cotton producing farms around the area. The structure was rendered in the Beaux Arts style, an architectural movement popularized in the United States during the 1890s through early 1900s, which incorporated classical elements such as rusticated masonry, ionic columns and decorative stone work with a modern twist.
