Louisa C. Kronmiller – an “old maid” as she thought of herself – opened the store by the tracks across from White Lake Station in 1895 at the age of 39. Her path to such a business was an unusual one because she was a woman and because unlike nearly all women of the time she was an unmarried one.

No pictures of the inside of the store exist to show what it was really like. But many invoices from wholesalers in Utica, primarily, but also from as far away as New York City, Boston, and Chicago tell of many of the things that were sold there. And photos of some of the items sold, advertising for such goods, and store furnishings capture a feeling for what the store may have been like.