In 1894, the Godahl Store sold shoes for $1.25 a pair, socks for 8 cents a pair, overalls for 50 cents, dress goods for 5 cents a yard, syrup for 30 cents a gallon, and coffee for 25 cents a pound, while buying potatoes for 1 cent a pound, eggs for 7 cents a dozen, and butter for 11 cents a pound from area farmers. Before the store was incorporated, settlers had to travel three to four hours by buggy to buy supplies in the nearest town. On April 20, 1894, area farmers, weary of that trip, held a mass meeting and formed the Nelson & Albin Cooperative Mercantile Association. Its original articles and bylaws were written in Norwegian, and business meetings were conducted in that language for several years. Trade first took place in the Maurice Grotto home until a new twenty-four-by-forty-foot building was erected in 1895 with volunteer labor. Though enlarged since then, the store still operates as Minnesota’s oldest continuously operated cooperative general merchandise store and remains owned by area farmers.