In western movies and toy train sets I sometimes see a “dry goods store”. What would you find in a dry goods store? Was it a “dry” goods store (i.e. no rain falling on the merchandise), or a “dry goods” store (crackers, flour, clothes, etc.–but no wet perishables such as milk or strawberries). Could you buy booze in a dry goods store? Why not just call it a “goods store”–was there a powerful selling point in having your goods dry? And whatever happened to the dry goods stores?
Two things to note
1: Movies != reality
2: Don’t overanalyze.
It’s not like there was a national dry goods store consortium that inspected every small town general store making sure they didn’t sell the occational bottle of fine Kentucky sippin’ whiskey or can of kerosene. It’s not a big deal to let the crayon go outside the lines once in a while and it’s not a big deal to tell kitty litter in a grocery store.
Dry goods stores were not the same as general stores. A dry goods store sold fabric, thread, ribbon, needles and other sewing supplies. As people started buying pre-made clothes the dry goods stores started selling clothing and became clothing stores or evolved into department stores. We had a dry goods store in my tiny home town as recently as 1965.
http://www.kckpl.lib.ks.us/kscoll/lochist/thennow/TN43.htm
Function: noun plural
: textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and notions as distinguished especially from hardware and groceries
Wonderful SDMB. 
I have often wondered about the “dry goods” phrase, but never quite enough to find out. So, it seems to me that we’d probably have called that a haberdasher in Britain. And they do seem largely to have died out, I think.
(Now I have to wonder about the origin of a strange word like "haberdasher.
Interesting usage points. Dry Goods here usually refers to fabrics, not to sewing needs, which fall instead under the heading “notions.” Is that usage common in Britain? Dictionary.com:
Dry goods stores seem either to have evolved into five-and-dimes, such as McCreery’s or Woolworth, or department stores. In fact, the Dry Goods phrase remained a part of several department stores’ names into the 80s and 90s. Associated Dry Goods was the former owner of Lord & Taylor, Denver Dry Goods (now Foley’s), Goldwater’s of Phoenix (as in Barry), etc.
The term ‘dry goods’ did actually exist in British usage (maybe it still does, in fact) in the tax and duty free industry, where I worked for some years - ‘dry goods’ encompassed a wide range of items including gifts, clothing, toys, electronics, china, jewellery, cameras, etc. - essentially everything that didn’t come under the umbrella of ‘liquor, tobacco, perfume and confectionery’.
I think it might also be in use in the ship’s chandlery trade.
Guess what - I think I have only encountered the “ntions” thing once,and I simply cannot remember whether it was in a U.S. book or a British one.
Us Americans have got WAY too used to the lack of specialization in retail outlets.
Nowadays, you want stuff, you generally go to one of two places:
(a) supermarket
(b) department store
…although Super Wal-Marts are rapidly attempting to corner the market on “one stop shopping.”
Didn’t used to be like that. Used to be, shopping for a household involved multiple stops, including,
(1) Greengrocer’s, which sold produce
(2) Butcher’s, which sold meats
(3) Bakery, which sold baked goods (duh)
(3) Dry goods store, which sold a variety of household non-food items, particularly textiles, sewing notions, and suchlike, although not limited to these, and
(4) General Store, which could sell nearly anything, although they generally didn’t include stuff you’d find at the greengrocer’s or butcher’s. They might or might not sell baked goods, although when they did, they generally stuck with stuff with a fairly long shelf life (crackers, biscuit, and suchlike). Some also sold eggs, and might or might not carry dairy goods, depending on whether the locality in question had a delivery service or not (anyone remember milkmen?)
Most of these outfits home-delivered, too.
Whoops. Forgot the neighborhood Icehouse, which sold ice (and usually delivered, as well), and almost always had a sideline featuring refrigerated goods like eggs, dairy products, soft drinks, beer, ice cream, and so forth. Some also functioned as beer joints or teen hangouts, depending on the type of clientele the manager enjoyed.
It hasn’t been all that long ago (I like to think) that the small town where I was raised had a Dry Goods store. It sold ready made clothing and material to make clothing, fabric, thread,etc. The town also had a Five & Dime, they sold many different misc items. The two stores stocked almost completely different merchandise.
Do you have any idea of what a “dry cleaner” deals with? 
[sup]Ring a bell?[/sup]
The dry bit in dry cleaner came from the use of solvents rather than water to clean the clothes. I don’t think it has any link to dry goods