Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Wagner’s Store in Church Hill, Mississippi, was built around 1870 and is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, country store in Mississippi. The store was first operated by Jewish merchants named Moses and Marx, and was owned and operated by the Fauntleroy family during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1928, the store was acquired by Maggie and Adolph Wagner, whose family operated it until it closed in 1998. The store also served as the local post office until 1992.  In 2001, the Wagner family donated the store to the Historic Natchez Foundation, which created a committee to oversee its restoration: The Church Hill Preservation Trust. The Foundation recently completed an exterior restoration of the store, thanks to a grant from the Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative through the National Park Service. A later phase will complete the restoration of the interior of the store. These pictures are part of a series of before and after photographs that will run in The Natchez Democrat every Wednesday during 2024 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Historic Natchez Foundation.