Never fit for an office, Charlotte’s ‘Mayor of Croft’ curated one of city’s great wonders

Silas Davis was never built for an office job. But he tried briefly.

After college, he went to work at Duke Energy.

“I don’t think he could stand the office, cubicle environment,” son Andrew Davis said. “He was eager to get back to his roots in north Mecklenburg.”

With each acre of soil he tilled on his grandfather’s farm, those roots grew deeper. A farmer, a historian and a businessman, Silas Bruce Davis died June 14 in his home. He was 79.

He’s survived by his wife of 50 years, Junie Davis. His children — Andrew, Noelle Small and Lois Ellen Tuttle — remember him chatting and joking with customers by the stove in Davis General Store.

‘Mayor of Croft’

Silas Davis loved history. He was known informally as the mayor of Croft, the small Charlotte historical district near Huntersville where his general store sat. The store sold groceries, work boots, clothing, seeds and cast iron cookware.

“He took pride in doing things the old fashioned way,” Andrew Davis said. “He liked when children came in. He hosted the children down the street at the Pioneer (Springs Community) School and taught them lessons about money and history.”

His children remember their father telling stories of getting out of school in September to help his family pick cotton in the fields to bring to the gin across the street.

Part of why he loved the Croft community’s history is the lifestyle, which brought him back to the family farm. Silas Davis had an affinity for rural living and agriculture, and made an opportunity out of every conversation to pass on expertise from his own life experience. He passed skills such as canning and gardening to his children.

“He had that sense where things had to be done right,” Tuttle said. “He always worked hard, and not only at the store and at home, he had a large garden.”

S.W. and C.S. Davis General Store: Founded in 1890

The Davis General Store dates back long before Silas was born — all the way to 1890 when his grandfather and great uncle founded it.

The structure that stands today was built in 1908. Its rustic front appeared in the Cinemax series “Banshee” as “The Forge” bar. The Charlotte Observer also named it one of its seven wonders of the city in 2022, saying, “In a suburban area of the city packed with character-less dining and retail options and cookie-cutter subdivisions and apartment complexes,” the general store stands out as a “living, breathing time capsule.”

Silas Davis was born 35 years later at Mercy Hospital in Charlotte. He attended Huntersville School and North Mecklenburg High School. He went to church at Independence Hill Baptist Church.

In school, he excelled at ROTC and track and field, both landing him scholarships to study civil engineering at NC State University.

He went on to serve 30 years in the military — a career that took him across the globe. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Thailand during the Vietnam War, the National Guard and Army Reserve, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

His service extended beyond the military to his community.

Davis served on the board of directors for the Mecklenburg County Farm Bureau and was a member of the North Mecklenburg Farm Group, where he went on tours through nearly all 50 states and many countries.

He made friends through the years, going on hunting trips with friends from the Stumptown Tractor Club and the 1962 North Mecklenburg High School reunion committee.

He shared the harvest of his personal farm each year with those friends and his neighbors, and he always asked about customers’ gardens.

He also passed on advice from trials and errors within his own garden to his customers, trading tips and tricks for conversation while he weighed grass seed or peanuts on the scale of the counter.

“He knew a lot of customers from growing up here,” Tuttle said.

Sometimes, even a customer’s newborn baby would make it on the scale.

Memorials may be made to Independence Hill Baptist Church.