G.F. Browns Store, Somerville Me. 10.

G.F. Browns Store, Somerville Me. 10.

"G.F. Browns Store, Somerville Me. 10." Street Scene, Buildings, People on Porch, Stores, Signs [C.F. Brown], Car C.F. Brown's Store, Somerville, Me. 10 pre 1928 Several men and a boy stand on the steps of Brown's General Store at Somerville Corners, later called Brown's Corners. It sold everything: grains and feed, cordwood and lumber, food and clothing, and, of course, candy. Chickens were raised on the second floor, a fact discovered when the space was being remodeled as a dance floor. Charles F. Brown ran the store until his death in 1928, when his stepson Herklas took over its operation. Charles Brown was the proprietor in this photo, when cars shared the road with horse and wagons: a horse's head and buggy wheels are barely visible between the auto and the store. The store did not yet have gas pumps, but later Herklas Brown sold Esso gasoline. He attracted the attention of Gordon Parks, an eminent photojournalist, who chronicled American life of the 1940s for Standard Oil. Parks' photos of the Brown family provide an intimate portrait of life in Somerville. When the store closed in 1962, the center of the community went with it. Today Somerville has no stores and Somerville Corners is a sleepy rural intersection.