One of the few remaining symbols of San Jose’s agricultural era will shutter at the end of this month.

Sam’s Downtown Feed on 759 W. San Carlos St. — famous for its life-sized horse statue in the parking lot — has served as a bedrock for the region’s farmers and pet owners for over three decades. Located in a 100-plus-year-old warehouse, the large brick building’s basement is also rumored to have been a speakeasy during Prohibition times.

“It makes me melancholy,” said Lisa Blackford, who co-owns the business with her husband, Sam, about the closure. “But you can’t expect things to last forever.”

Blackford said a multitude of factors have contributed to the closure, including Sam’s health and the challenges that the pandemic is posing to small businesses.

With its interior walls draped with old grain sacks and art handed down from longtime customers, the store is an emporium for those who have a cat all the way up to a stable of horses. Myriad grains, farming equipment and even animal-themed sympathy cards are for sale.

Walking in feels like stepping back in time — there’s not a single computer in the whole store, even behind the register.

Established in 1986, the Blackford family name and legacy in what is now Silicon Valley go back even further, when Sam’s family came to the region in 1860 to grow prunes and apricots. Blackford Avenue and Lane, Blackford Elementary and the shuttered high school, are all named after the family.

Though he started in radio, Sam eventually left the industry and was influenced by his family’s agricultural history to start the feed store with Lisa. At first, the store strictly sold products for farmers, but slowly began offering items for more urban-friendly pets like cats and dogs.

Sam, who was the subject of a February profile in The Mercury News’ business section, spoke fondly of the customers who graced the store’s doors.

“(They’re a) broad spectrum (of people),” he said in the February interview. “They’re original folks who are twice my age. There are people who have just moved here to the area. There are second- and third-generation people. We now have people whose parents brought them in here when they were kids and they’re now adults.”

For Lee Cox, a longtime customer of the store, its closure is a punch to the gut.

“I’m very sad,” said Cox. She remembers around a decade ago getting a cancer diagnosis and Sam personally delivered chicken coop supplies to her front door. “It’s going to be the loss of an iconic store. Where everything is so modern, it is just one more thing to go.”

The property, which has a separate owner, is currently on the market for $5.2 million.

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