Old Duck Chastain Store c. 1950, Dawson County, GA

Photographer facing northeast from Hwy 183

According to the Tax Assessor's website, this structure was built in 1950, and is currently listed as a storage building. It sits on the NE side of Hwy 183 (Elliott Family Parkway) with a pull off area in front of the structure. There is also a house that sits not too far behind the building that is listed as having been built in 1957. These two features led me to believe that the structure functioned as something other than a home.

Thanks to Mr. Philip Burt of Dawson County, it was identified as the old Duck Chastain Store. An internet search located a W.L. "Duck" Chastain that was born in 1910 and died in 1978, and was laid to rest in the Goshen Baptist Church Cemetery, also in Dawson County. His headstone includes the "Duck" nickname.

Mr. Burt remembered stops there as a boy and getting cold bottles of coke out of an old fashioned coke coolers, the kind with a bottle opener on the side. He recalls that Mr. Chastain actually had his home in one part of the structure and operated the store out of the other part. Which side was which, I'm not sure.