The Evander P. Walker store on Main Street

On the north side of Main Street in Alexandria, five lots north of Hartslog Street, stands a two-story brick store with its gable turned to the street. The Historic American Buildings Survey recorded it in 1988 as the Evander P. Walker Store and called it the only gable-front, three-bay commercial building in Alexandria dating from the middle of the nineteenth century, the lone surviving example of the town's mercantile vernacular. By 1988 it held a video arcade and apartments.

The survey dated it broadly, to somewhere between 1855 and 1875. A period map shows Henry C. Walker owning the lot in 1855. On August 28, 1860, he sold it to Samuel Isenberg for $700 with only a dwelling on it, and on September 12, 1862, Isenberg sold it for $800 to Evander P. Walker, then a merchant in the town. The survey reasoned that Walker put up the store after buying the lot, though it could not fix the year.

The survey called Evander probably Henry's son. The 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley settles it, listing Evander P. among the children of Henry C. and Susan (Young) Walker and recording his marriage to Satira Stewart. Africa's 1883 history names E. P. Walker among the merchants of a village that had three stores in 1881, and lists him that year as treasurer of the Odd Fellows lodge and a trustee of the Methodist church. The survey adds that he was burgess of Alexandria in 1875 and 1876 and again in 1880 and 1881.

The survey counts the property as staying in the Walker family for 100 years: deeded to Susan Walker in 1868, back to Evander from her heirs in 1885, to Sue Y. and Mary Walker in 1935, and sold out of the family on December 27, 1962. The windows had all been replaced with modern sash when the survey came, but the brickwork under the eaves survives, mouse-tooth and dentil courses along the side walls with corbeled corners, on a building roughly 20 by 55 feet.

Evander P. Walker, probably Henry's son, acquired the store in 1862 and is identified as a dry-goods merchant in 1862-63 and 1880 censuses. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, for which he served as treasurer in 1881. Walker was a burgess in Alexandria from 1875-76 and 1880-81.Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, Evander P. Walker Store, written data pages, HABS PA-5410 data pages, report page 2 (PDF page 3) · character 4,117 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-09-05 · Library of Congress survey record, read in full

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