These three mercantile buildings on the west side of the courthouse square were constructed between 1885 and 1902.  The building to the south, Resource No. 47, was built of limestone between 1896 and 1902 as a two-story building with  a brick front. The façade featured a storefront on the first floor and four tall narrow windows with limestone sills on the  second floor. The façade was topped with a decorative brick cornice and parapet topped by a triangular pediment. In 1963, M.A. Burgess opened a Ben Franklin Store in the two one-story buildings (Resources Nos. 48 and 49). By  then, most of their decorative cornices and parapets had been removed. Burgess combined the two buildings and  covered the upper walls with a flat surface that resembled stucco. Sometime between 1976 and 1993, the two-story  building to the south was incorporated into the Ben Franklin Store and the upper walls of all three buildings were  covered with vertical wood planks that reach to the flat roof of the two-story building. Today, the storefront features  one central concave entry with two large bays on each side. The bays are filled with plate-glass windows separated by  wood pilasters that were built to look like a cast-iron storefront. The glass bays and entry are surrounded by narrow  strips of limestone wall space.