The Dresden Plate, now one of the most widely recognized quilt patterns, has been known by several names over the past 150 years and was most commonly made with small scraps of fabric. A handmade Dresden Plate quilt created in the 1970's by longtime Douglasville resident Edna Simpson Bearden remained closely tied to her life and family history. Remembering her story about the country custom of draping a quilter's coffin with one of her quilts, her family chose, upon her death in 2006 at the home where she had lived since 1945, to drape her coffin with the Dresden Plate quilt she had made more than three decades earlier. The site was also part of Douglasville's commercial history: in 1879 The Dorsett, Price and McElreath General Store and Cotton Warehouse opened there as one of the first permanent brick buildings in the commercial district; the business was later sold to Samuel N. Dorsett, an early Douglasville merchant and co-owner of The Weekly Star newspaper; J.M. Roberts operated a hardware store there in the early 1900's; Hoke Bearden operated a grocery store there in the 3940's; and in 1997 Allen Bearden, son of Edna Bearden, and Greg Peeples purchased the building and continued to occupy it.