At the northwest corner of Thome and Spring streets, this store was one of six general stores operating in Athens before the Civil War and stood at an ideal commercial site near the Spring Street business area, the route to the ferry landing, and the Des Moines River waterfront business district. Isaac Gray first held title to the location in 1852, and later owners included David Bedell, D.M. Scott, Paul Thome, James Ryan, John Stafford, H.C. Thompson, J. Townsend, Julia Hills, Henry King, David Fortune, M.D. Caldwell, William Bradshaw, and John Bedell. According to family interviews, George Wright moved his family from Croton to Athens in 1907 and took over operation of the store, and a May 10, 1912, report in the Kahoka-Gazette Herald said he had recently received a new stock of goods there. Wright operated the store until it burned with all its contents just before World War I. Earl and Clyde Wright remembered a partial basement where ice was stored under sawdust for sale and use during warmer months, and Bertha Parke recalled local men cutting ice on the river for storage there.