In the late 1800s and early 1900s, W.N. Johnston and Sons Co. owned and operated seven stores on Broad Street across from the train depot, and Nat Johnston's grocery store was considered the finest grocery store in town at the time. Around the time of incorporation, Captain Carmi Kilpatrick McNeely moved into town and, with his brother Burgess Wilson McNeely, opened a livery stable. In 1914, the Mooresville Co-operative Creamery began providing a local market for area dairy farmers, and in 1924 the Mooresville Ice Cream Company was spun off from the creamery as a separate business. Mooresville native Dr. Selma Burke, an American woman descended from slaves, was born on December 31, 1900, and in 1944 was commissioned to sculpt the likeness of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was unveiled in 1945 after his death by President Harry Truman.