The Mercantile is the heart of downtown McCloud, a three-storey brick building from 1897 that once housed the company store for the lumber mill. After the mill closed in the late 1970s it lay neglected for decades; today it has been restored as a mix of shops, a bakery, and an old-fashioned hotel upstairs.
The building is worth a look for its high tin ceilings, original wooden floors, and the iron columns marked with the manufacturer's name from Pittsburgh. Combined with the surrounding cluster of mill-era cottages, it gives downtown McCloud the feel of a town that has been carefully preserved rather than rebuilt.