Farmville Since 1940s

Since 1940s

By 1955, only two companies remained in Farmville – Dunnington Tobacco and Putney Tobacco Company – one of the warehouses being bought and converted into a factory by the Lynchburg baised Craddock-Terry Shoe Corporation in 1935. By 1976, all tobacco warehouses were closed by the Dark-Fired Growers Marketing Association and opened under a single owner near Dowdy’s Corner as the New Randolph Tobacco Warehouse. The auction houses were closed indefinitely in January 2005 after the federal tobacco buyout.

The present Green Front Furniture Store began with Richard F. Cralle Sr., who bought Green Front Grocery (located in one of the shops on N. Main Street) and passed it down to his son, Dickie, who “switched from dry goods to home goods.” Eventually the store expanded into multiple buildings downtown and into the old tobacco warehouses at the end of N. Main Street.

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References

Text:

"Randolph Warehouse, Mill and First Street” and Julian and Edwina Covington, Tobacco Industry in Prince Edward County, 2006.

“About Us,” Green Front Furniture, https://www.greenfront.com/about-2/

Images:

Jeff Hurt, “Aerial Photo of Downtown (1947-1952),” Prince Edward County Historical Society Facebook, July 25, 2019.

“North Main Street 1959,” VDOT Facebook, June 14, 2018.

“Tobacco sale at Middle Warehouse, Farmville, Va., 1962-1963,” VCU Libraries Digital Collections.