History preserved at North Conway 5 and 10 Store

It's been a "five and dime" store for more than 60 years. And lovers of nostalgia and bargains will be happy to know that it's going to stay that way for many more.North Conway 5 and 10 Store on Main Street is now officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that took three years of hard work and research to achieve."I can't tell you how much this means to us," says Shirley Alcott, who has owned the store with her husband Phil since 1977. "It's just a piece of history that's not going to go away. You see all the changes that go on in this town, and we're really the only store that's still there and always was there. I think it's reassuring to people. A lot of our customers say that. They say, 'At least we can count on you still being there.'"The listing in the National Register of Historic Places comes with restrictions as well as protections."You can't alter the place," says Phil Alcott. "You can restore it and renovate it, but you can't change it. And if the state decided to widen the road through Main Street, they couldn't touch it."Numerous forms, reports and photographs needed to be submitted as part of the application process. Research on the building went back to 1840, with Conway Historical Society providing a lot of "help and encouragement," Phil Alcott says.The building was mainly a general store in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was Pitman's Pharmacy from 1913 to 1914. For more than 20 years starting in 1915, it was a post office, with A.D. Davis as postmaster. Davis had an insurance office upstairs. Carroll Reed also occupied the building for a short time.Lillian Sweeney and her husband, Sidney, opened the five and dime store on May 6, 1939. The Alcotts bought the business in 1977 and the building in 1990."Today it is still a classic example of a 1940s dime store," the Alcotts wrote in 1999, when the store turned 60 years old. "Antique wooden counters with glass separators keep the merchandise neatly displayed. Customers enjoy personal service to help them find items they just can't get anywhere else. Whether it's hair nets, oil cloth or white parade gloves, it's still sold at the Five and Dime. You can buy a bag of marbles or jacks, a balsa glider or jump rope and, just for a few minutes, go back to a time when life was much less complicated."North Conway 5 and 10 Store is closed for the next two days while the floors are being renovated. The store will reopen Friday. Hours this time of year are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.A plaque commemorating the listing in the National Register of Historic Places is at the front of the store.