Councill's Store, once located 10 yards northeast, was the area's first post office, established in 1823 and operated by Jordan Councill Jr. (1799-1875), a prominent merchant, livestock trader, and slaveholder. In 1849 the North Carolina legislature appointed Councill as one of three commissioners tasked with laying out the town of Boone as the seat for the newly established Watauga County, specifying its location on land that Councill and Ransom Hayes donated for that purpose just west of Councill's Store. Councill, who served as the local postmaster from 1823 to 1859 and from 1860 to 1866, consented to changing the post office name to Boone in 1850. By the 1880s, Daniel B. Dougherty acquired the old Councill's Store building and moved it to the south side of King Street, expanding and converting the old store into his private residence. Dougherty's sons sold the property in 1904 to the Greene family, who operated the Greene Inn, a tourist home, out of the building until its demolition in 1954.