Exterior Renovation of Wagner’s Store

Left image
The front of Wagner's Store before renovation.
Credit: Carter Burns

Right image
The front of Wagner's Store after renovation.
Credit: Carter Burns

Wagner's Store, in the community of Church Hill, is one of the oldest surviving country stores in Mississippi. The Historic Natchez Foundation acquired the building, which was badly deteriorated, and sought to restore it.

The deteriorated Wagner's store overlooks the base of the community's namesake Church Hill.

At the end of the Civil War, country stores began to replace plantation commissaries as a source of supplies for rural Mississippians. What had once been a pre-Civil War planter-dominated economy became a post-Civil War merchant-dominated economy. Around 1870, Emile Moser and Isaac Marx built the store on Church Hill Road. In 1928, the Adolph Wagner family acquired the store and operated it for 70 years. It also served as the community's only gas station, voting precinct, and post office. Its post office use ended in 1992, and the Wagner family closed the store in 1998. The family later donated the building to the Historic Natchez Foundation to ensure its preservation. The Foundation listed the store in the National Register of Historic Places in its nomination of Church Hill as a rural historic district, the only rural historic district in Mississippi.

The rear of Wagner's Store after renovation.

Thanks to their grant from the Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative, the Historic Natchez Foundation was able to restore the exterior of Wagner's Store. The deteriorated exterior siding was replaced on three sides of the building. The roof was patched and repaired, and the building was repainted with the original paint colors. The siding is structural, so the building is now sound and is no longer in danger of collapse.

Now that the building is secure, planning for the rehabilitation of the interior is underway. Ultimately, the Foundation plans to use the building as a visitor center and museum for the surrounding community.