Star General Store

Star General Store. This one-story Colonial Revival building was constructed around 1899. Shutters and other features were added later to give the structure its Colonial appearance. In 1921, the original commercial building was converted into apartments by the De Medicis family. It was during this time that the store front was torn away and a porch extending the length of north side of the structure was added., The house is located in one of the oldest sections of the city and borders Cordova Street, which forms the western boundary of the walled colonial city of St. Augustine. The grounds to the north of the house still hold a portion of the original Rosario Defense Line., An early coquina stone span from which Bridge Street takes its name once extended westward across the now-filled Maria Sanchez Creek from an area at the southwest corner of the Star General Store. Here, archaeologists found the eastern footers of the bridge during an excavation of a utility line., Over the past century, the building has been used for many things. Its first resident, Mrs. Z. Salmon, was a dressmaker in St. Augustine. The building was operated as a kindergarten in 1910. Later in the same decade, some of the finest women's hats in St. Augustine were made here when the structure served as a millinery. An advertisement in the January 28, 1921 edition of the St. Augustine Record describes the closing of a toy store called the Doll House, a business most likely designed for tourists. In the early 1900s, the building operated as the Star General Store, a popular dry goods market. It served as a corner "convenience" store for Ponce de Leon Hotel workers who lived just south of the store in the Ponce de Leon barracks., Dry goods stores like this one were important meeting spots for St. Augustine townsfolk to discuss and argue life, the weather, the crops, town business, and politics. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were few institutions that influenced the American scene more than the general store. Here, people from every socio-economic strata, including the heads of outlying settler families, would sit, swap yarns and arrive at an unofficial consensus on the issues of the day. It was not uncommon at these gatherings for the shopkeep or talkative patrons to dispense heavy doses of homespun wisdom or philosophize on the issues at hand, all while sitting atop large wooden soda cracker barrels. This is where the term "cracker-barrel philosopher" comes from. The "cracker" part, however, describes the barrels and not the sitters., Food and other materials were purchased from the dry goods store by townsfolk, but few settlers from the surrounding areas could afford "store-boughten" luxuries. Instead, what little money they had was used to buy necessities; things which could not be procured from their immediate surroundings, like shells for their shotguns and real coffee. But, some money was almost always set aside for pure settler pleasures, mainly whiskey and tobacco., (captions) , Small general stores, like this grocery operated by Rudolph Pomar on San Marco Avenue, were common in St. Augustine in the early 1900s. Photograph courtesy of Karen Harvey., The Star General Store building in the 1930s when it served as a residence. Pictured near the west end of the porch is an original 19th century carriage step., Early general stores, like the Star General, were important meeting places for local townsfolk. to discuss the issues of the day.