Pineville Commercial Buildings for Sale

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission is currently offering for sale two historic buildings on Main Street in Pineville, N.C.

316 Main Street, which was originally the Younts General Store. The business was started by Samuel Younts, a blacksmith from Davidson County, who came to Pineville after the Civil War. A 1989 Charlotte Observer article reported that Mr. Younts was one of the most successful businessmen in Pineville. His store, according to the article, generated between $150,000 to $175,000, in receipts each year. When the town was being incorporated in 1872 Younts served as the town’s first mayors; and according to local lore, surveyors determined the town’s bounds by measuring a half mile in each direction from Younts’s store. In 1888, Younts was among the founders of the Pineville Cotton Mill. The Cotton Mill, which processed much of the 6000 bales of cotton grown in the fields nearby, was the economic backbone of the town of Pineville from its founding to its closing in 1992.

By the 1930’s, 316 Main Street became the Howard Brothers Grocery Store. The store like the other grocers on Main Street carried a wide variety of products including meats and produce, hardware, and clothing. This grocer remained open until the early 1970’s. At that time a salvage business occupied the space. In the 1980’s the store became an antique store.

330 Main Street, was owned by the Miller family since 1948, when L.S. Miller and his wife Mary bought the property from the Niven family, was home for over 70 years to the Blankenship Feed and Oil Store. The initial patriarch of the family was Captain Stephen Pettus Blankenship, a Civil War veteran. Blankenship walked home to Pineville, from Maryland, after being captured by Northern troops.

Captain Blankenship’s son, William F. Blankenship, Sr., opened the feed store, prior to the 1930’s. In addition to the feed store Blankenship owned an icehouse on the south side of Main Street. Before the Second World War, when few in Pineville owned electric refrigerators, Blankenship made daily, door-to-door deliveries of ice from his large orange-covered wagon.

William F. Blankenship, Jr., who later ran the business with his father, became involved, like many of the other merchants on Main Street, in Pineville politics. After losing his seat on the town board of commissioners in 1965, Blankenship was reappointed to the board in 1966 and reelected to the seat in 1969. Blankenship Feed, like the Pineville Gun Shop and Bailes Recreation, stayed in business through many economic changes. It was not until after the beginning of the 21st Century that Blankenship Feed, perhaps the Main Street business most connected with Pineville’s agricultural past, ceased doing business. The location is currently vacant, but most recently housed a popular antique store.

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