Terri's Favorite Store In Louisiana - Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store in Natchitoches

Story and Photos By Ken Hulsey

A few weeks back our family took a trip up to Natchitoches to celebrate my wife's birthday. She was excited because she loves to wander around the old Kaffie-Frederick Mercantile Store on Front Street along the bayou in the town's historic district. The store is as close to an old fashioned mercantile as you can get with it's vintage items still on the walls and shelves. It is always a wonderful trip back in time to walk around the isles.

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Last week Terri found a great article about the history of the Kaffie-Frederick Mercantile on the KLFY (Lafayette) website:

Can you imagine being an immigrant in the American South during the Civil War and not being able to speak English? Can you imagine being brave enough to wander from plantation to plantation, speaking a foreign tongue, with the hopes of making enough money that you might one day be able to open a mercantile store?

Because that’s precisely what Harris and Adolph Kaffie did in the oldest European settlement in Louisiana in 1863. 

The Jewish and Prussian immigrants opened their business, which was eventually called Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store, within months of the beginning of a significant Union offensive strategy known as the Red River Campaign.

...Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store was an immediate hit. They built a fine building that has stood the test of time, and the second floor of their store was used as a showroom from the beginning.

The exterior of the building is still exactly as it was in the 1890s.

So is the vast majority of the interior.

The freight elevator installed in the 1890s is still there.

The store’s first cash register, which runs by a hand crank, is still being used today. It’s said to work as well as it did in 1917.

The old mercantile store has survived world wars, epidemics and pandemics, economic depressions, and recessions, and it is still going strong and selling eclectic items. Looking for a Radio Flyer wagon? Garden tools? Items for your kitchen? What about houseplants? Nuts, bolts, or screws? If so, this is your kind of place.

And if you’re searching for a place to buy old-fashioned toys for all the kiddos this Christmas, the Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store will hook you up.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

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