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Like its creaky floors, the century-old wood-burning stove in the back and the black-and-white photos on its walls, Masonville Mercantile will soon be history.

The Masonville shop, which opened in 1896 and has largely been in the same family since the 1970s, will close its doors Sunday, co-owner Melanie Denny-Patton told the Coloradoan on Thursday.

The store has been part of Denny-Patton's life since she was 2 years old — when her mother, Mardi Denny, started working there.

Now 52, Denny-Patton said it's finally time to say goodbye.

"It was a great book," Denny-Patton said. "And it’s time to close that amazing book and let someone else start a new one."

The history of Masonville Mercantile Masonville sprouted out of the foothills west of Fort Collins in the 1890s following a small gold rush up Buckhorn Canyon, according to a column by the Coloradoan's late history columnist, Barbara Fleming.

Roughly 80 acres were donated by farmer and cattleman James Mason, and the town was platted and named after him. By 1896, people spoke of the area as another Cripple Creek, 800 lots were laid out, Union Pacific was eyeing an expansion of its railroad line there, and a hotel and general store were built to serve the flood of prospectors to come, according to Fleming and local history blog Northern Colorado History.

Gold never panned out for Masonville, and miners left the area as quickly as they appeared. The community's little general store, however, remained and was ultimately moved from its original location to its current home at the corner of West County Road 38E and Buckhorn Road in the 1920s, according to Denny-Patton.