MOULTRIE — The new owners of Cooper Flower and Gift Shop want the community to remember its history and see what’s in store for the future.

April Sellers, who with her husband Randy bought the shop Jan. 1, said she remembers going to the shop when she was a girl. She and Randy bought it because of her love for flowers and to keep Colquitt County’s longest continually operating florist up and running.

The Cooper family, who started the flower shop in the 1940s, put the shop up for sale in 2008, Sellers said. She and Randy said they want to make renovations while retaining the history of the shop.

“We want to do a lot of renovations,” Sellers said. “We don’t want to change from the original, just update it.”

Alvin Moore, a friend of the Sellers and Cooper family, said the shop was started by K.H. and Mary Elizabeth Cooper in the mid to late 1940s. The shop was moved from the Coopers’ house to its current location on Sylvester Highway in the late 1950s to early 1960s. A cooler at the shop was dated 1955, and a family inscription in the cement floor is also dated 1955.

The shop was started out of the Coopers’ dairy farm, and Moore said the Coopers grew many of their own flowers. The Sellers’ ownership is the first time the Cooper family has not owned and run the shop since it was started.

Sellers said they hope to build a greenhouse on the property to grow their own plants and flowers. They also want to add more nature-type gifts to go into a gift shop on the property yet keep the shop as it always has been.

“We want to bring it back to where Mrs. Mary Elizabeth had it,” Sellers said.