The Mooresville hardware business that dates to 1899 is now putting its historic downtown home on the market for $2.75 million, placing one of the town’s most recognizable landmarks at a crossroads. D.E. Turner & Co. has filled its shelves with everything from nails and whisk brooms to cast ironware and local honey for generations. Now the property’s next chapter will be up to a buyer.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the listing covers a roughly 10,000-square-foot property at the heart of downtown, including the 2,632-square-foot hardware store and a 3,608-square-foot rear warehouse. The warehouse has its own loading doors and interior dock, while the storefront sits across from the historic Mooresville Railroad Depot.
A Four-Level Time Capsule In Downtown Mooresville
The building’s history is almost as crowded as its shelves. A report from the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office identifies the Turner Hardware building at 107-115 North Main Street as a roughly 1908 structure in the Mooresville Historic District, known for its blond-brick facade and rusticated granite archway.
The store still carries plenty of old-school architectural baggage, in the best possible sense: 17-foot ceilings, a full second floor, a mezzanine, a basement with seven-foot ceilings and a freight elevator connecting four levels. The rear warehouse adds 11-foot ceilings and two loading doors, giving the property far more flexibility than a typical Main Street storefront.
D.E. Turner’s roots reach back to 1899, when David Elmer Turner and his father bought out Tomlinson Hardware and formed the company. The Mooresville Public Library notes that the business moved to its current North Main Street location in 1909 and still retains original counters, early merchandise and the town’s oldest certified elevator.
Sale Follows The End Of A Family Era
The listing follows the death of Jack Moore, who died at age 93 in 2025 after spending most of his life at the store. Moore began working there as a teenager and, as reported by the Charlotte Observer, said D.E. Turner & Co. was the only job he ever had.
Moore and his family took over the business after D.E. Turner Jr. died in 1981, keeping alive a retail model that has become increasingly difficult to maintain. Moore said it was hard to keep up with new products and still make a living from the store, while his family acknowledged that it was time to sell.
The property’s historical value is amplified by its place in a downtown district that has lost some of its older commercial fabric. A state preservation survey says the Mooresville Historic District was listed on the National Register in 1980 and describes the Turner building as a prominent surviving piece of the town’s early commercial core.
The sale does not determine whether hardware retail will continue inside the building. That decision belongs to the buyer, who will be acquiring not just a large downtown property but a working piece of Mooresville history that has outlasted buggy shops, gas pumps and generations of changing shopping habits.
