Country Stores of Mississippi, Mississippi, Paperback The old country stores along the back roads of rural Mississippi are the treasures that remain of a bygone era. Travel back to the Mississippi of yesteryear and hear of the deadly can of molasses that once caused a massacre in Carrollton, Mississippi, in the late 1800s. Find the church near Alston’s General Store in Rodney with a Civil War cannonball lodged in its front facade. Or discover the haunts of Causeyville General Store among shelves and corners stocked with relics of the American past. These and other stores remembered here by local author June Davis Davidson were the cornerstones of their communities, and harken back to a time when the sweetest things in life were the smell of peanuts roasting and reaching into the penny candy jar.