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A visitor strolling west at the corner of Chestnut and Third on the north side of the street a generation ago would have viewed a scene quite different from that of today. There was no telephone exchange, but instead a lawn and a brick residence, containing in the 1920’s the dental office of handsome Dr. Charles Stitzer. The Fisher Meat Market was in reverse order the Culp Butcher Shop, the Dieffenderfer Tin Shop, Rick Grocery, Brosius Movie House, O.P. Glover General Store, and Herr and Hayes General Merchandise a century ago. The Meat Market and the brick residence on the west retain the “eye brow” windows at the attic level, testifying to their antiquity of about 120 years. The white house with the porch was built by M.E. Strunk in 1893 replacing an earlier one owned by a Foster family. The building housing the Wetzel watch and clock shop belonged to the Rank family. At the turn of the century it was the Foote news shop and in 1920 the millinery shop of his daughter Alice. An active feminist, she kept a large campaign photograph of James M. Cox in her window for months after his defeat by Warren G. Harding. It was a joke repeated by Mifflinburgers from senior citizens down to the elementary school kids. The American Legion building was the house and store block of Jeremiah McMurtrie in the middle years of the 19th century. It was substantially remodeled in the 1800’s by Horace P. Glover, a lawyer, for his bride, Georgia Kemble. Older residents will recall the latter, a former teacher, and activist in the feminist crusade. After the death of Horace, the office at the west was occupied by David L. Glover, his brother. Both of the brothers were state legislators and civic leaders. The handsome Victorian brick structure at 328 (particular after Diane Sholley renovated it several years ago) was built by Minadore Schware in 1873. He was a jeweler and an immigrant from Germany. The building replaced a foundry on the site operated by John M. Stayman. Following Schware’s death, it was a restaurant with the right door leading into a counter, and the left, into a lady’s ice cream parlor adorned with the wine decorated tables and chairs of that era. A back room served as the town’s pool hall of a single table. Tom Reed and Clyde Stitzer were the operators here: then “Jack” and “Jill” Gutelius, the Charlton Hackenberg family acquired it in the 1920’s, and residents will recall their personal brand of ice cream. They and Mr. and Mrs. George L. Reish at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut were recognized for their high quality ice cream, and, which was superior was a frequent subject of conversation. The second floor of the building was used for many years as a lodge hall. Boys, eyes bulging, sometimes loafed in the poolroom, marveling at the skills of their elders. A small hole in the partition to the restaurant revealing a father’s entrance into the restaurant permitted the relaying of this news by sign language to the boy, which enabled him to remain quiet or hurry out the back door to be at home when dad arrived with the ice cream. Next door the quaint narrow, one storied shop building was the office of Dr. Harris Steadman, a physician, who was also postmaster. Somehow this former Civil War army surgeon found room for both his patients and the post office, but in 1875 the new Post Office was moved into the Schware block. After his death, Julia Steadman, his wife, served as postmistress, a position a few women had won during the war. David Watson, added a brick facade to the Barber residence next door, in 1897, which matched the storefront of William Rotering, a jeweler. At 342 Chestnut, Frank Feese once had a shoe store, then in the 1930’s and 1940’s it housed the Francovich Fruit Store. Next door, where the Village Flower Shop is today, Lincoln Hoffman had a plumbing and tin shop at the turn of the century. He installed running water in many Mifflinburg homes between 1898 and 1900, and through the years his store was a favorite loafing place during winter months. In the 1920’s and 1930’s Everett Baker had a clothing and shoe store here after leaving a sales position in the J.D. Gast department store. In the early days of Mifflinburg (Youngman’s Town) joined Rote’s Town at Third Street, and the slight turn in the road and the angle of the lots in Rote’s Town they paralleled Third Street and in Miffinburg they squared with George (Chestnut) Street might have remained the passer-by of the situation. Not that it really mattered legally or politically, since both villages were simply places in West Buffalo Township. The site of the Dimm-Bidlack home and office at the corner was occupied prior to 1905 by a row of shops and a residence, which were owned in 1860 by Berryhill Bell and his wife, Maria. (Berryhill was an uncle of William Young, the subject of a past article). Following the death of her husband, Maria sold the property to William Piper one of the town’s principal realtors and he, in turn, resold it to Samuel W. Snodgrass in 1868. A former tanner, with fourteen years experience in hardware, also, he erected the present brick structure in 1883. He seems to have spared no cost and the finished edifice was one of the finest of its kind in the region. “Its wide counters were of walnut and maple, and at the press of a button a counter flopped out of sight, a door opened, and we could pop down a stairway.” A handsome stairway led to the display room on the second floor. It paid dividends for him, with a sizeable share of his trade stemming from the buggy industry. In 1909 his sons, James and Robert, sold the business to I.V. Musser, whose son Harold operated the hardware for many years. Meanwhile, in 1905, Dr. Charles Dimm, a young physician, erected the splendid residence of the Bidlacks. The older house on the site was moved by Allen Stuck, a local builder, to 215 Market Street, where it remains today. On the lot west of the hardware store William Young had a rental property used by Dr. George Kemble in the 1870’s, and on the next lot he built an attractive brick structure for the Mifflinburg National Bank, which he founded in 1863. In 1880, he sold the property to the Mifflinburg Bank, which occupied it for 77 years. It was used thereafter by the Mifflinburg Hose Company, and razed in 1976 for the enlarged fire hall. William Young’s massive residence at 333 dating from 1857 is now the Mifflinburg Borough Building. The three story Italianate mansion, had been built by John W. and James H. Young, two of William’s uncles, as a double residence and was designed by Lewis Palmer, the region’s outstanding architect, and executed by Thomas T. Baker of Lewisburg. Its twin stairways remain gems of architecture after 123 years. William Imhoff’s Central Hotel stood on the lot now occupied by the Mifflinburg Bank. It was a two-story brick structure with a Mansard roof. By 1912 it was remodeled to house two shops and an apartment. The family of Tom Heiter, the barber, lived in the latter and Tod Zeller’s ice cream parlor and H.O. Bower’s meat market shared the downstairs. Henry Gast’s 1837 department store was on the site of the Strunk Mortuary and residence until 1883, when he and his son, J.D.S. (Spyker) moved it across the street into a new business block. The old Gast building was rebuilt to house J.W. Barber’s men’s furnishings store and residence. Dr. David F. Brubaker’s medical office and drug store, erected in the 1880’s still stands next door at 357. His son, Dr. Frank Brubaker, remodeled it, and lived above it, in the early years of the 20th century. Berryhill Bell Young, another of William Young’s uncles, had a business block and residence dating from the 1860’s on the site of the Masonic Temple. It was a frame structure containing several shops and a residence at the west end. William Steadman had his general store and home here at the turn of the century. Then in 1923, when it contained Henry Comley’s music and shoe store, C.R. (Dal) Klingman’s tinner’s shop, and several second floor flats, it was devoured by a massive fire, leaving only a shell at the west end, and the partially destroyed Brubaker building on the east. It was a moment never forgotten by witnesses. A narrow, one story building standing at 369 had a number of uses. In 1893 it had a confectionary store with baked goods, managed and prepared by the Wilson family. Just prior to WWI, it was rented by McClellan (Clen) Shively and enlarged to accommodate his bakery. He remained there until 1950, and delivered bread daily in the earlier years by horse and bread wagon. The brick building on the corner was owned by William Foster and his descendants for some eighty years, and used as a residence and storeroom. It was Wolff Freedman’s men’s store in the early 1890’s and Weiser’s tin shop for a few years later. At the turn of the century it was the John and Jennie Bibighaus notions and shoe store, and through the years following, Harry Klose’s groceries and the Koons family’s women’s fashions. In the mid-twenties, it was Rufus Beaver’s men’s furnishings. His V-neck sweaters and plus fours and sixes knickers were the rage of the younger male set. In recent years it housed the Hornburger Bakery. The fine century-plus old structure was saved from collapse two years ago by a rehabilitation given to it by Charles and Fred Dale to provide them with offices for their insurance business and midtown apartments. A hotel once stood where the Laney Store at 348 Chestnut stands today. It moved across the street in 1883 when the town’s most imposing business block was erected there by architect and builder, Enoch Miller. Built as a single facade with a decorative brick cornice, it contained the Gast Department Store on the east, the Heiter Barber Shop in the center and the Henry Strunk Department Store and residence on the west. Henry Gast had founded the store thirty-five years earlier on the opposite side of the street. Now, in 1883, the new store provided him and his son (J.D.S. Spyker) with one of the finest general stores in the area. Its flourishing business warranted still another enlargement in 1908 along the east side, when Harry Gast, Henry’s grandson, was the manager. On the first floor a shopper might look for dry goods, notions, women’s men’s and children’s wear and shoes, as well as a grocery department. On the second floor the shopper might purchase a complete line of household furnishings, including Queensware (dishes and glassware). And from a bandstand like central office, the cashier received cash and credit slips, and returned change by means of a network of wires carrying detachable cups, propelled by springs to all parts of the store. The fine building, the furnishings, the communication system and the variety of merchandise rivaled many city establishments. The Heiter Barber shop next door was a family institution made up of Augustus and his sons and daughters. One after another, William, George, Tom and Sara and Ellen, learned the trade, and Tom took over the business when his father retired thus the shop served the community for more than a half a century. And beginning with a single chair, it grew to four, while apprentice followed apprentice, until more than thirty, unrelated to the family, received instruction. The Henry Strunk store had departments similiar to Gast’s. An orphan boy, Henry had started out as a tailor. After the closure of the store the building was taken over by the Mifflinburg Hardware Company. The west side of the Strunk home subsequently became the barbershop of Charlton Klingman. A lawn once separated this building from the Benjamin Thompson residence at the corner. But in 1903 Michael Hartman erected a brick commercial property on this lot. The right side houses a succession of bakeries, Crawford, Roush and Shively, while the left side was the furniture store and mortuary of Lyman Strunk. A fire gutted the structure in 1912, and thereafter William Doebler’s cigar shop occupied the right side, and Hartner’s Grocery was in the left. The Order of Odd Fellows, occupied the. second floor, where the Rebeccas and then Mifflinburg Bank also gathered. In the early 20th century, the first floor of the Thompson residence was divided to provide a book and paper shop for the Kaushie’s and later for Bella Walter, and on the corner side, a drug store, for Alvin Parvin. In the 1920’s Parvin’s coke and lemon was a ritual which attract the town’s youth nightly, and undoubtedly sparked many romances. Behind the buildings on Fourth street Howard Dickie Hopp erected a masonry building, with a pool hall in the basement and a restaurant on the main floor managed by the Ward Rogers. There were several apartments on the third floor. Active at the outset, the businesses languished during the slack of the 1930’s. The Hopp building replaced a small frame structure at the alley where Thompson once had a marble-granite shop, used later for a telephone exchange and bottling works. © Copyright 2011 by Mifflinburg Telegraph Weekly Newspaper Top of Page |
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