After serving in the Confederate Army and being wounded and taken captive at Gettysburg, Robert Watkins Adams returned to his hometown of White Springs when the Civil War ended. Unable to resume farming, he and his wife, Sophia Jane Broward Adams, opened a general merchandise store in White Springs around 1866. This building was completed in 1892 and two sons, Francis and Nathaniel, incorporated the family business as Adams Brothers Store in 1905.
Farmers brought their cotton in wagons to be weighed on the cotton scale behind the store, and cash was paid or credit was then entered in the mercantile records to purchase goods. The cotton was cleaned on the Broward Gin located on Mill Street. Bales were carried by wagon to Wellborn to be shipped by the train until rail service reached White Springs in the 1890s. This rare structure is one of Florida's oldest wooden-framed mercantile stores still standing in its original location.