Meighen Store

Meighen Store. . , Horse medicine, school slates, eyeglasses, flour - all might have been for sale or trade in the log cabin store opened in 1853 by Felix Meighen and Robert Foster, boyhood friends from Pennsylvania. As the only store in Fillmore County, it did a thriving business and also served as a social center for the new town of Forestville. The stagecoach station stood just beyond the store, and up the hill was the schoolhouse, located now by its foundation ruins. , In 1856, Meighen and Foster built the present store, constructed from the first brick made in the county. Although Foster withdrew from the partnership in 1868, the Meighen family kept the store open until 1910. , Some of the original trees still forest the Meighen homestead area; the family set aside land about a mile past the store as a park, and placed picnic tables for public use along the river bank. The Meighen store, complete with its 1910 inventory of merchandise, is now part of Forestville State Park, which includes more than 2,000 acres.