Jewett-Bass Hall

The following article was generated by Dr. John Kirn in 2005. The original history was based on Bettie Weaver’s History of Midlothian.

Jewett-Bass Hall is two-story structure at 13310 Midlothian Turnpike. It is the only nineteenth-century commercial brick building still standing in Chesterfield County. It was originally built in 1870 by two brothers, George H. and John W. Jewett.
JB Hall
From 1870 until the early 1950s, the building served Midlothian as a general store. The second floor was used as living quarters . . . George and John Jewett ran the store until the 1920s when they sold it to Mr. and Mrs. L. Shelby Bass. The Bass’s not only ran the store but a generator as well and often sold their excess electricity back to residents of Midlothian.

The store was taken over by Jefferson Cosby and son in the 1940s and then served as a bicycle shop in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, a commercial kitchen was added to the rear of the building and it was transformed into a restaurant.

In 1988, Mount Pisgah bought the Jewett-Bass Store to gain badly needed Sunday School and meeting room space. This was a fitting purpose for it was the Jewett brothers, who had built the store, who in 1877 also gave Mt. Pisgah the original piece of land on which the chapel now resides. Today, JB Hall has been extensively renovated and is a meeting place for various groups as well as the backdrop for the annual Mt. Pisgah pumpkin fundraiser for missions.

Robert Stowell, Ed.D
Historian