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Picture: Looking South on Main Street – note wide Street

NOSTALGIA

       The following conversation is said to have taken place between an elderly Stanwood gentleman and his wife as she attempted to extract from his some news of an Open House at a main street business establishment.

Wife: “Did you have a cup of coffee?”
Husband: “No.”
Wife: “Did you have any doughnuts?”
Husband: “Yes.”
Wife: “Did you have more than one?”
Husband: “Yes.”
Wife: “Did you have two?”
Husband: “No.”
Wife: “Did you have three?”
Husband: “No.”
Wife: “Did you have four?”
Husband: “Yes.”

       One must conclude that those are the only details of the grand opening of Ropa’s self-service grocery the lady ever heard.

       Another story provides a rare glimpse into the controversy which brewed about a new venture in an earlier day. Bill Graft, of whom you will learn more about later, chose to give some advice about the building of the Opera House.

Billy: “They should have a basement under the entire building.”
Dissenter: “What would they do with all that space?”
Billy: “Fill it with pumpkins if nothing else.”
Dissenter: “What would you do with all those pumpkins?”
Billy: “By gosh, they would make better heads than some people have!”

       The reader will do well to keep both tales in mind as he thumbs through these pages. Much of the past is lost to us, for memory is a flickering flame. Sometimes it chooses to cast the brightest light upon the smallest details, leaving more significant events in deep shadow. It’s well that Billy is not around to compare the heads of his historians with those pumpkins.

       It will surprise some of Stanwood’s younger residents to know that in an earlier day two hotels and two boarding houses were among the town’s most flourishing enterprises. The Hotel Stanwood once graced the southwest corner of Broadway and Main. One Simon Houghten was perhaps both owner and proprietor in 1855, but little more is known of the establishment until the late 1890’s when Mrs. M. L. Dwinnell was landlady there and Ed Gruber the clerk. The Hotel was a two story frame building with nine or ten rooms and a dining room which would seat 40 guests. Mrs. Dwinnell had a reputation for setting a good table, serving three meals a day in her $1.50/day hotel. Single meals were 50˘.

       In 1869 W. S. Graft and his wife settled in Stanwood and opened a boarding house on East Center Street. “Central House” catered to railroad and traveling men. Meals here were 25˘.

       That same year the North Western Hotel and The Miller House were built. Stanwood was not to have such a boom in travelers’ accommodations until the post-war years brought vacationers to America’s highways and two motels were built here along Highway 30.

       But in 1869 it was the railroad that stimulated the hotel business, and the North Western Hotel was built just across the tracks south of the North Western depot. The original building had two rooms on each of two floors and was primarily a lunch room. But with increased business, additions were made and by the 1890’s the hotel boasted “fifteen good rooms, a fine office, pleasantly furnished parlor, large dining room and a sample room”. A Mr. Richards was the first proprietor of the hotel, and he was followed by the Elliotts, the Petersons, the Alex Dunns and the Baileys.

       The Miller House, built in 1869 by M. H. miller, did a boom- . . .

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Pictures: Main Street Looking East 1910; Same View—25 years later

. . . ing business in those years, too. The three story building stood just north of the Methodist Church and provided, in addition to dining and sleeping facilities on the first and second floors, a meeting hall on the third floor for local lodge functions such as potluck suppers and dances.

       Billy Graft, who operated Central House, also had a livery business where the Stanwood Lumber Yard is now located. He hired local boys as drivers and, since there were no rail connections from Stanwood to Olin, his business was well-patronized by traveling men who needed transpiration between the two towns. He delivered mail to Tipton on Sundays and holidays when there was no train service to the county seat. Billy was a strong believer in good roads and suggested that every farmer own a King Road drag and keep the road along his farm in good condition.

       Robert Filson came to Stanwood around 1895 and had a thriving livery business, too. He took over the Miller House and had his stables at that location. Mr. Filson kept six or seven good teams and carriages, and his stable served as headquarters for eastern horse buyers.

       In describing the business of B. F. Mather, a turn-of-the-century newspaperman referred to it as “the horse millinery and mule jewelry emporium”. Once recovered from that heavily turned phrase, we discover in following sentences that Mr. Mather was in the harness and saddler business and manufactured many of the products he had for sale in his 16’ x 60’ shop,

       Bill Jackson and his son Clyde served the community as blacksmiths for many years. Clyde is remembered, too, for his skill as a baseball pitcher. The blacksmith shop stood on North Main and Charles Sitler was the last owner.

       N. B. Anthony came to Stanwood in 1870 after his discharge from the Civil War, and appears to have been the town’s first druggist. He was also in the lumber business and a Justice of the Peace. In 1872 Anthony’s daughter, Nellie, gained the distinction of being the first child born in Stanwood.

       The drugstore was located in the building east of the present post office, and was operated by Grant Hoon from 1890 to 1905. He was followed by Ed Horn and N. E. Stone. When C. A. Westphal bought the business in 1915, he discovered he had some fence mending to do. It seems Mr. Stone, though a most enterprising businessman, had somehow so thoroughly antagonized the Drs. Tilden and Baker that they had taken to filling their own prescriptions. Mr. Westphal won their good favor and continued in the business until his death in 1931. He was to be Stanwood’s last registered pharmacist.

       Mrs. Westphal continued to operate the store as a sundry shop, but it was always called “the drugstore”. The roof of the building was in poor repair and leaked when it rained. One day a sudden deluge made a quick retreat necessary, and everyone on Broadway helped to move Mrs. Westphal’s stock out into the street. After that she rented the building west of the Post Office and remained in business there until she sold her stock to Edward Barnes in 1946.

       The original drugstore building is now the coffee shop and bar portions of George Kasowski’s Steak House. After Mrs. Westphal was driven out by the rain, the building very briefly housed the Crock Auto Repair. It was Don Peterman who later purchased and repaired the building, and converted it into one of the most popular restaurants in this area.

       That part of the restaurant that is used as a party room, was built by F. L. Milton sometime after 1899, to house his furniture business. In 1898 he had suffered a $2500 fire loss at this location, but by 1901 Milton had a building 18’ x 62’ in which he sold “plain and fancy furniture, carpets and sewing machines”. This was also where he did embalming in connection with his undertaking business, and it served to house a horseless carriage agency as well. A seemingly tireless man, Mr. Milton also sold and delivered ice which he had taken from the Stanwood pond that formed in the pits where clay had been removed to make tile.

       That clay was the raw material which fed the Boling brick and tile factory from 1886 until it burned down on July 4, 1897. J. N. Boling and his brother-in-law built their factory on the east edge of Stanwood where the ball park is now located. The factory employed several men to tend the four kilns in busy seasons, and they were paid $1.30/day. Boling never rebuilt after the fire. He gave the clay pits to the town to be used as a dump.

       The hotels and boarding houses have passed. The livery, the smithy and the saddler has passed from the scene. The tile factory and furniture store are only memories. Not even a faint medicinal odor clings to remind us that todays’ café was a drugstore for three score and ten years.

       But the barber shop, dear reader, that is another story. If those walls could talk, there would be no need to write this history. Will Hart was the first to cut hair in the building that has been a barber shop continuously since about 1900. Will’s son remembers helping his Dad after school and on Saturdays, standing on an 8” box in order to reach the customers. Hair cuts were 25˘; 10˘ for a shave. The shop was opened at 7 a.m. and closed when everyone was waited on. Will’s pet peeve was the Saturday night lull between 7 and 8 p.m. when the men stood around talking in the stores; they crowded into the barber shop when the other stores closed and kept him clipping ‘til midnight or later.

       After Will sold the shop it came into the hands of a Rhodes, then a Fankhauser and a Bellas, perhaps others, until 1930 when Henry “Hank” Ormsby took over the shop. He remained . . .

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Picture: Broadway 1969

. . . in business there until his retirement in 1968. Wayne Jackson now continues the barbering business in the same location.

       The Hart Barber Shop and the Hart Hardware Store right next door were built about the same time. They had a common wall and both had carbide lighting systems, with the plant in the basement of the hardware store. Homer Hart, Will’s brother, had been burned out of the store he operated on the south side of Broadway. He had purchased the hardware from Tom McGowan around 1900, and McGowan probably had bought out a man named Nickey who seems to have been Stanwood’s first hardware merchant. Homer employed Milton Rice as a tinner, and Rice had some training in telephone repair and line work as well as in plumbing and hearing. Will Hart and Rice built a private line from his home to the barber shop. This was Stanwood’s first local phone.

       About 1904 Homer Hart started the first telephone service in and around Stanwood. The switchboard was set up in the rear of the store and remained there until Homer sold the hardware business to Walker Hart about 1912. From 1920 to 1935, Horace Hart and his son Morton owned the store, then Ward McClellan bought them out and remained in business there until his death. There must be a mystique about the Hart Hardware, just as there is about the Hart Barber Shop: it has been a hardware store throughout its 69 years and is now owned and operated by William Jensen who located there in1965.

       We know that N. B. Anthony, the druggist, was in the lumber business in the 1880’s, and a Charles Whitnall as a lumber dealer here around 1894. But it was the Claney’s whom we can definitely place in the lumbering trade in the area east of the present lumberyard offices. A. D. Claney came to Stanwood from Ohio in 1895 and in that same year he formed a partnership with W. E. Claney. W. E. Claney, the junior member of the firm, was born in Cedar County and had farmed for years before his venture into the lumber business.

       The Claney firm later became Claney and Davidson (Steve). In 1911 the Claney and Davidson partners sold out to the Gardner Lumber Company which operated the business, with a brief interruption, until 1936. Then the lumber business came into the possession of W. G. Ridenour in 1948. The present firm, Stanwood Lumber Company, took over from Ridenour in 1948. Adair Spear, now of Burlington, was the first manager in the present regime. H. J. Gesling of Mechanicsville is the present manager.

       The stockyards, located on the east end of Broadway, were built after the first line of the Northwestern went through Stanwood in 1858. The Dubuque Packing Company has an office there, managed by James Moneypenny. Livestock is shipped from the yards entirely by truck now, but western feeder cattle are still brought in by rail for cattlemen in this area.

       W. J. Muhs enjoyed the distinction of being Stanwood’s first implement dealer. He came to Cedar County from Clinton County in 1893, and the next year put up a 36’ x 60’ warehouse on the site where the Memorial Building now stands. He carried a full line of farm machinery and repairs. We know Muhs business was doing well in 1901, but our time machine fails to pick up anything for the next 14 years. It is remembered that in 1915 Clyde Jackson, the blacksmith, had an implement business in the Muhs building and sold new and used automobiles as well. In 1950 Jackson made a deal with the American Legion to trade the implement building for the structure we know as the Library. Jackson handled only repair parts and small hardware at his new location, and there has been no implement dealer in Stanwood since his time.

       Since we’ve mentioned the “Library”, perhaps this is the time to look briefly at its varied history. It goes unrivaled for the number of disparate enterprises that flourished and flickered under its roof. Originally the building had three rooms and each was used in a different manner. The west room, which is now the children’s reading room, has served as a dental office and a shoe shop, a millinery shop, a lunchroom, a café kitchen and a grocer’s storeroom. The center room was once a harness shop and later the Legion Hall. The east room sheltered a doctor’s office at one time, and the Post Office at another.

       Kohl’s Grocery occupied the entire building for awhile, and a picture of the “Library” with awnings and grocery store paraphernalia looks so appropriate one wonders if these were its happiest years. Art Ropa joined Kohl in the grocery in 1926. The business was moved to the present site of Ropa’s Store in 1931. In 1932 Ray went to work for brother Art for $1/day and all the candy he could eat. The store was open every weekday evening and until noon on Sunday.

       Art and Ray bought out Kohl’s interest in the store in 1946 and remodeled the same year. Art had some doubts about installing self-service equipment, but was relieved to discover that the ladies really did pick up more products when they could help themselves.

       You’ll remember perhaps that it was Ed Gruber who clerked in the Hotel Stanwood. When Mrs. Dwinnell closed the hotel, Ed became the proprietor of “The Palace of Sweets” an ice cream parlor and cigar store which grew to be more of a sundry shop before Ed left it in 1926. “The Palace” was located in the building erected by J. N. Boling and in that part of the building that now houses Ropa’s grocery. The second floor of this building has served as doctor and dentist offices, apartments, and once was the home of the Stanwood Herald. If you stand back a bit and examine the brick façade by the stair door of this building you will see written there: Job Printing—The Herald.

       The feed and grain business is one of the few early enterprises that can claim continuous growth and development through the years. Joseph McCoy erected an elevator in Stanwood in 1909. It was located along the railroad south of the Farmer’s Co-op and contained the most modern machinery available in that day. He is said to have purchased from $3000 to $5000 worth of grain each month.

       In the 1920’s Albert Haesemeyer put up a commercial feed building east of what is now Jack’s Feed. It was later moved to its present location north of the old Wilder elevator. A . . .

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Picture: Charlie Spear’s Harness Shop

. . . corporation, “Stanwood Feed and Grain”, took over the business and employed Robert Sucher as manager. Later, under Ralph Follet’s management, grain storage bins of 90,000 bu. capacity were erected. The Stanwood Farmers Cooperative now operates a storage, feed, fertilizer, weighing, drying and grinding business there.

       After Homer Hart sold his hardware business, he built a garage on the south side of Broadway. It is this building that is the present home of Jack’s Feed. Jack Hanks purchased this business from Joe Shima in 1952 and has made extensive additions and improvements over the years. He provides grinding and feed-mixing services, storage, drying facilities, commercial fertilizer and herbicides and deals in grain.

       Stanwood’s first veterinarian, William Ives, learned his trade while in the cavalry during the Civil War. He came to Cedar County about 1854 and returned here after the war, which for him included imprisonment at the infamous Andersonville and Libby prisons. Ives’ nephew is Mr. Leabhart of Leabhart and Fields in Tipton.

       M. H. Somes arrived in Stanwood in 1869 from New York state. It seems probable that he was the first to operate a general store here. His 20’ x 60’ storeroom stood east of the present hardware store and his stock consisted of dry goods, dress good, notions and groceries. His slogan was “When you can’t find it anywhere else, Somes has it”.

       James G. McKerron was one of the most colorful merchants to set up business on Broadway in Stanwood’s early days. A native of Scotland, Jimmy was a sociable man and people loved to hear his Scottish accent. The business he established, in the building later razed to make way for our present Post Office, is hard to classify in a general way. Jimmy came to the United States trained in shoemaking and clock repair. He sold and repaired shoes, clocks, watches, silverware and fine jewelry. Jimmy also stocked good cigars and smoking tobacco. All things combined to make his shop a favored loafing place. It was here that the older men gathered to discuss the problems of the day, and thereby earned for the store the appellative, “Congress”. Will G. Smith (husband of Etta) had a jewelry repair business in his home in the early 1920’s and was Stanwood’s only other jeweler.

       West of Jimmy’s old location, the original building first used by the Stanwood Herald still stands. A. W. Bushnell was the publisher until he was bought out around 1930 by the Simpson’s of Mechanicsville. Then Nadine Hapgood had her beauty shop here, and later it was the new home of Mrs. Westphal’s sundry store when she was rained out of the drugstore. Cecil Spear once operated a variety store in this building, too, which he sold to the Hoffman’s. They were the last to use the structure for merchandising.

       The Preston Bros. General Store was a well-established business when J. W. Seifert came to town in 1895. That year Seifert bought the store and contents but soon had the misfortune of being burned out. The building that stands in sad disrepair at the corner of Broadway and Elm is the same one which Seifert had built to replace the charred ruins of the Preston establishment. Seifert’s general line of merchandise included groceries, drygoods, crockery and glassware, footwear, and kerosene for lamps. Eggs and butter brought in by rural customers were exchanged for goods or paid for in cash. In the 1890’s Miss Nellie George, later Mrs. Charles Hoyman, was a clerk in Seifert’s store.

       There were a succession of owners after Seifert sold out to Milo Garrison. Bernstorf and Schafer followed Garrison, then Shafer sold his share to Dan Saxon. The Bernstorf and Saxon partnership endured from 1912 to 1916. Then the Stanwood Supply Co. took over briefly.

       In 1936 the building housed one of the first food freezing plants in this area under the sponsorship of the Stanwood Locker Company with Elwood Hansen as manager. Irwin Techau bought the equipment in 1940 but later moved his locker business to a new store on Highway 30.

       J. B. Wilson moved to town in 1879 and entered the mercantile business with Joe McCoy. Wilson’s interest turned to the meat line in 1892 and, after dissolving his partnership with McCoy, he started his first meat market west of the present library building. By 1901 the market was operated in a building in the rear of the bank block and Wilson’s son Jerome had joined his father in the enterprise. Son Ralph came into the business, too, and eventually the family built a cement block structure west of the fire station where they added grocery stock to their meat products and remained in business several years. The building was razed to make way for the town hall and fire station.

       Farming was the main interest of S. C. Wilkins who came to Cedar County in 1868. His financial success on the farm made it possible for him to acquire several “blocks” of Stanwood property, and in 1894 he erected some business houses here. The most imposing of these buildings was a brick structure which stood east of the present bank and housed the Union Trust and Savings Bank until it was destroyed by fire in 1964.

       It was in this Wilkins property that Garrison and Haesemeyer once operated the leading department store in the area. They started their business in a frame structure which stood on the same site. After Wilkins assumed ownership of the lot and building, he had the old building moved to the south corner of Broadway and Main. Garrison and Haesemeyer apparently moved with it, but returned to their original location in 1895 when the new Wilkins building was completed. The department store was set up in the center part of the building which provided a ‘ 28’ x 80’ store room, a 20’ x 40’ addition and a 20’ x 20’ double deck. The main store was stocked with dry goods, dress goods, notions and groceries. The balcony was reserved for carpets, window fixtures, canned goods and stationery. The next room was taken up with boots and shoes, and a tailoring department.

       Sometime after 1901, H. F. Haesemeyer purchased the Garrison interest and operated a thriving business for many years. The day has long passed since a small community could be self-sufficient. It is ironic to note that it was that great convenience, the automobile, which closed most of the general stores and the doctor’s offices, that boarded up the hotels and boarding houses, and left us with half-forgotten tales of livery stables and harness shops.

       During this centennial year surely we will be forgiven for wondering if the price of all this “convenience” was not a bit too high.