In the early 1920s, David Houston, a prominent coal baron and owner of the Houston Coal and Coke Company, built the Houston Company Store on the edge of Carswell Hollow along Route 52 rather than in the center of town. The building housed a post office, payroll office, and retail store that served the Houston Coal Company’s employees and their families, and it also served as a gathering place for community members to socialize. Houston later sold the store and other assets to the Koppers Coal Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which operated the store between 1930 and 1960. Afterward, the building housed other businesses including a dairy, a construction company, and offices for McDowell County Emergency Services, and it also stood vacant for a number of years. Efforts to restore the building began in 2005, and federal and state grant money helped restore the exterior, including replacing windows and doors, cleaning and repairing the brick walls, building a new concrete ramp, and installing handrails and the Koppers sign above the front door, with these updates completed in the spring of 2016.