By Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation

This small one-story building at 1213 Openwood St. began its life most likely as early as 1850, as a residence.

By 1895, it was the furniture repair shop of J.D. Grimes on one side and Minia Jerome’s fruit store on the other. By 1902, the furniture shop had been replaced with a cobbler’s shop.

A.L. Pace and his wife Annie lived in one half with Pace operating a barber shop on the other side in 1904 and then by 1906, he had added a grocery business to the building. In 1911, Henry and Mattie Foster and William Lindsey operated a grocery store here, with only Lindsey in the building by 1914.

By 1924 the building was vacant but was once again a grocery store and residence for Haywood and Minnie Travis by 1929. Haywood operated a shoe store in the building in 1935. The couple still lived here in 1962.

The building continued to be a home for another 30 years and then was briefly a gift shop before being boarded up in about 2016.

It is a great candidate for rehabilitation, as it is in the same block as the newly rehabbed Gore’s Hardware building and in the same neighborhood as the Firehouse Gallery.