Cash or Credit

Opened in the 1870s during Reconstruction, the Store operated for almost one hundred years and served the formerly enslaved community who remained to sharecrop. Foodstuffs or goods that were not grown or made could be put on credit or purchased with plantation tokens, and at the end of the season sharecroppers would settle up their store accounts with the Planters, the LeComte-Hertzog family. One recollection recalled that when the year ended, a family might owe money rather than be owed money. In the 20th Century it became a community store for local residents, where people gathered to catch up with relatives or friends, swap stories, hear the latest news, and listen to a local band during the holidays. As mechanization reduced the need for human and animal labor, sharecropping and tenant farming became obsolete, residents moved away, and plantation stores closed.

Montgomery, Louisiana · United States