Home Mercantile

The store's ninety years follow the ups and downs of Nazareth itself. The colony had seventy-one residents by January 1904 and was platted later that year, and a post office had opened in 1903. In the 1930s huge dust storms uprooted crops and made farming unprofitable, and by 1933 the town was down to an estimated fifty people. Farming revived in the 1940s, and about 200 people lived here by 1941. The count dipped to about seventy-five in 1955, rose to 274 at the 1970 census and reached 356 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Home Mercantile For 90 years, starting in 1905, Nazareth residents purchased goods here. The original wood-frame structure, built by Fred Heidgerken with living quarters above, opened its main floor to home shopping needs and the storing and selling of fresh meat and dairy products. In 1928, Ed Kern and Conrad Schulte built a new brick and concrete building, the first in town, that came to include the post office from 1937-1980. The building also hosted such social activities as weekly poker games, amateur boxing matches, a community bulletin board, and occasional liquor sales from the back door. While the store closed in 1995, social and cultural events of the community continue to be celebrated here. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Deaf Smith County Historical Museum — 25 mi
  Hereford's county museum in an early Catholic school: the Windmill City's pioneers, a half-dugout and caboose outside, and work by the Italian prisoners held south of town in the war.

More markers nearby

• Holy Family Catholic Church — steps away
• Summerfield-Dameron Corner — 6.4 mi
• Arney School — 9.9 mi
• Castro County — 11 mi