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Picture: South Stanwood street

“SOUTH STANWOOD”

       This is the chronicle of the business establishments that have grown up along the south edge of town since the motor age made the Lincoln Highway (Route 30) an extremely busy state road. The Highway was paved in 1927 and now thousands of cars and trucks every month in the year use it for east-west travel.

       It was about 1914 that the first Stanwood filling station was built on this road. Owned and operated by W. E. Mitchell, it was located on the site of the present DX Station, on the north side of the Highway. Shortly afterward a competitor to Mr. Mitchell appeared in the person of S. H. Brislain who started another filling station about two blocks east of Mitchell’s, the site of the Jay Oil Company.

       With two filling stations on the north side of the road, it was inevitable that some enterprising person or persons would soon open one on the south side. This happened in 1923, when Bert Moffit and his brother-in-law, Al Jones, erected a station, across the highway from what is now the DX Station. The Moffit-Jones firm did not last long, and the business has changed hands several times. For 20 years it was known as “Loody’s Conoco Station,” its operator being Louis Luedeman. For almost as many years it was the bus station too, Louis serving as agent for the Greyhound Company. Just recently this station was sold to Cecil Spear, who operates it now. Stanwood has no bus station at present.

       Other kinds of businesses were sure to develop “at the side of the road” where hundreds of people would stop if there was something that caught their eye sufficiently. This was the logic of Bob McClellan and Elwood Resewehr when in the early 1920’s they built an open dance hall on the north side of the Highway at the corner of what is now Maple Street. McClellan soon bought out Resewehr’s interest and has been operating the hall ever since, under the appropriate name, Highway Gardens. As soon as he became sole owner, Bob enclosed the floor and added a lunch room and bar, making the Gardens a popular recreation spot all the year ‘round.

       In 1948 Gerald Jones bought a location on the north side of the Highway, west of the Highway Gardens. Here he built a café and filling station which he and his wife operated for six years. When he sold these enterprises in ’54, he established the Jones Motel on his Highway property.

       A large garage and automobile show rooms were erected on the south side of the Highway in 1948, just east of the Conoco filling station. Kenneth Proesch and Earl Wells were the proprietors. This building has changed hands a number of times and now houses the Hein Feed Company.

       A “boom period” struck South Stanwood in the 1950’s. A number of businesses wanted locations, so a new street about two blocks long was laid out, parallel to the Highway and just north of it. On this new street we now find the following establishments: a tavern and lunchroom owned by Effie Trierwieler, a car body shop operated by Earl Wells, a Maid Rite owned and operated by Reginald Olson, a root beer stand built by Charles Bentley, an insurance office in which Virgil Walters does business, a car wash built by Paul Gadke, an office and electric appliance display operated by Cedar County Skelgas, the locker plant and grocery store owned by Don Peterman, and a laundromat built and operated by Melvin Thien.

       The year 1954 brought the Rustic Villa Motel and Gift Shop to the south side of the Highway, just west of the Conoco Station. Built by Harry Holder, it is now owned and operated by Emil Licht.

       About 1963 the Moorman Feed Company erected an office and large feed storage building north of the Highway, east of the locker store. Some idea of the extent of the business may be gained by the fact that a spur track of the North Western Railway runs directly to the Moorman plant, serving to bring feed materials directly to its doors and to ship them out to great distances when they have been processed by Moorman.

       A year later than the Moorman’s appearance Cyanamid put up a large fertilizer supply building on the south side of the road directly across from the Moorman installation. Also on the south side are the Skelgas storage tanks and large grain storage bins belong to Hanks, whose main plant is on Broadway.

Picture: Town Council From the left – Gordon Licht and Phil Rosenbaum, councilmen, Grant White, town attorney, Mayor Virgil Walter, Mrs. Kenneth (Joan) Koch, town clerk, and councilmen Jack Robinson, William Yock and Dr. E. W. Speer