9 Mississippi Storefronts That Have Changed Hands More Than Anyone Can Count

A fire tore through a two-story building on Natchez’s Main Street this July.

That building had changed hands many times before.

The Natchez Democrat traced the building’s history back more than a century, through a run of national retail names, to this summer’s fire.

These are the Mississippi storefronts that have changed hands more than anyone can count.

1. 100 Main Street, Natchez

Planter and merchant Thomas Henderson built the storefront at 100 Main Street around 1850, a Natchez cotton warehouse at the corner of Main and Broadway.

Federal preservationists later called its cast-iron storefront the finest example left in the city.

Cars took over the building next.

A fender and body shop moved in during 1946.

Bluff City Motors leased the whole building the following year.

Drinks eventually replaced engines.

The building later held Bowie’s Tavern, named for frontier legend Jim Bowie, then 100 Main Spirits & Eatery, before Bowie’s Rabbit Hole took over in 2023.

This one Natchez address has housed a cotton warehouse, an auto shop, a car dealer, and three different bars and restaurants since 1850.

2. 521 Main Street, Natchez

521 Main Street in Natchez went up in the late 1880s with a storefront facade of decorative brick and stonework rare for that block.

Businessmen Joseph Dixon and Joseph Kellogg bought the building in 1929 and landed a national tenant, Montgomery Ward.

The Great Depression cut that run short.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. moved in by 1939 and stayed until 1967, when the company relocated outside downtown.

Sears lasted the longest.

Office tenants followed for decades, the most recent an operation called Delta Fuel.

Flames swept through 521 Main Street this July, decades after Sears cleared out for good.

A structural engineer soon called the surviving walls a collapse risk.

Two national retailers and half a century of offices ended in one summer fire.

3. 1222 Washington Street, Vicksburg

At the corner of Washington and Clay Streets in Vicksburg, a two-story brick storefront opened around 1870 as A.G. Cassell’s drugstore, a corner shop that doubled as a general store.

A 1910 fire damaged this storefront, and workers rebuilt it.

Different businesses cycled through after that.

More drug companies came and went, along with a beauty parlor, a barber shop, and a law office.

The trades kept changing.

United Cleaners ran a dry cleaning shop there for years, then moved to Cherry Street in 1993.

Six different trades have shared that one corner over the past century and a half, a slower pace of change than some storefronts see.

The building still stands there today.

4. 1117 Washington Street, Vicksburg

1117 Washington Street in Vicksburg opened around 1902 as the Lowenthal Brothers Dry Goods store, a shop the Vicksburg Herald once described as having the feel of a lively bazaar.

Vicksburg Daily News’s “From the Archives” feature has listed what came after: A furniture warehouse, a tailor’s shop, a general merchandise store, and a hamburger stand.

The DeLuxe Cafe ran there from the 1930s until 1963.

Nothing sells burgers or coffee at that corner now.

Then came the wrecking ball.

Crews tore the building down during 1970s urban renewal.

The address is a parking lot today.

5. 700 Tate Street, Corinth

A brick mill building rare for surviving into this century, 700 Tate Street in Corinth opened in 1897 as the Corinth Clothing Manufacturing Company.

State preservation records list the building under three later names: The Adams Machinery Company, the Berry Motors Building, and the Chadco Building.

The name changed again.

A clothing factory turned into a machine shop, then a car dealer, then something else again.

The building earned Mississippi Landmark status in 2001 and a spot on the National Register three years later.

Few buildings change trades that many times and keep the same walls standing.

6. 401 East Capitol Street, Jackson

A six-story brick building at 401 East Capitol Street in Jackson was completed in 1906 as Kennington's Department Store, a landmark known around the city simply as Kennington's.

Kennington's anchored downtown Jackson for decades before it finally closed.

McRae's Department Store moved its flagship location into that same building next.

Then came the offices.

Mississippi's historic district records now call the building the Heritage Building, home to law offices and other small businesses instead.

More than a century after Kennington's opened there in 1906, 401 East Capitol Street now holds office suites instead of department store racks.

7. 16 South Main Street, Water Valley

16 South Main Street in Water Valley opened in 1871 as Boyd & Gant, a grocery and dry goods storefront across from the train depot.

The city's walking-tour history lists at least nineteen different businesses at that address since then.

That's a lot of owners.

A grocery became a department store, then a co-op, then a company that sold dry goods and handled funerals at the same counter.

Grocers, a package store, and a long run of restaurants followed across the twentieth century.

A nonprofit called This Is Noteworthy moved in during 2021.

A new owner began fresh renovations there in 2025.

Boyd & Gant wouldn't recognize the storefront now.

8. 111 South Main Street, Water Valley

Lumber hauled up the Tallahatchie and Yoknapatawpha Rivers built the Simmons Hotel at 111 South Main Street in Water Valley in 1857.

Fire destroyed that hotel during the Civil War.

An ironworks foundry took over the corner in 1884, making stoves, plows, and fences.

The Herring Hotel replaced the foundry in 1893.

New businesses kept arriving.

A grocery store and the Trusty Drug Store ran out of its ground floor for years.

J.V. Blackmur bought the property in 1932, and the Blackmur Hotel name stuck by 1934, while three different drugstores took turns behind its counter over the decades that followed.

Lightning struck the building in 1982.

The fire that followed left it too damaged to save.

Main Street Sweet Treats serves that corner today, on a rebuilt lot where two hotels and a foundry once stood.

9. 522 Main Street, Hattiesburg

S.L. Heidelberg built a furniture store at 522 Main Street in Hattiesburg around 1902, a building the local paper later called one of the city's oldest and best-built.

Heidelberg later sold Chevrolets and Studebakers from that same showroom floor.

S.L. Heidelberg retired in 1927.

Ten small offices moved into the building next, everything from a paint company to the local Boy Scouts headquarters.

Scott's Store, a national chain, signed a 30-year lease on the building in 1930 and opened its doors in 1931.

Ben Franklin Store took over in 1955, about twenty-five years into that lease.

Fabric, book, and law office tenants followed after that, one after another for almost fifty years.