"Our Store"

This view of Main Street comes from a postcard postmarked 1911. The sender has drawn an arrow pointing to "our store":


(Click on images to enlarge)

The arrow points to a building with a sign reading "Drug Store," topped by a curved embellishment bearing a name that is not legible. That building once housed a drug store operated at various times under the names Mackey and Scheddell.

Having written "our store," the writer then turned the postcard over and clearly signed herself "Edna":



So far as I have been able to determine, there was no Edna in the Scheddell family or the Mackey family.

However, there was an Edna in the Scheidt family, and Scheidt & Keilman's Bee Hive store was just slightly north of the drugstore.

On this image, blown up to 1200 dpi on the scanner, it's clear which building is marked, but on the original 3.5" x 5.5" postcard, it's not nearly so clear. I think it quite possible that Edna Scheidt marked the wrong building by mistake. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

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Moving south from the drugstore, let's see what we have here:



(1) A one-story wooden building, probably housing the Gazette office.*

(2) A two story building with a sign advertising Blatz beer, suggesting that it houses a saloon, which I think is operated by Fred Ahrens and Fred Schavey, Jr.*

(3) Newman's Hardware, operated by Paul Newman, who is more generally associated with his later location at Third and Center Streets. (This leads me to wonder if I wrongly categorized the interior shot of the hardware store; it could have been taken inside this Main Street location.)

(4) A saloon, "Hogan's Place," operated by Hugo Zobjeck, who seems to have been called "Hogan" as a nickname.

(5) The bakery operated by Severin Baumer** and, later, his son Fred Baumer.

(6) Real estate and insurance office operated by Lewis E. Barnes.

(7) Real estate office operated by a retired Ainsworth farmer, Gilbert Bullock.

(8) A billiard-and-pool business operated by Calvin L. Fleming, where the cigars he sold may have been of his own making.

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*I'm cheating by looking at another postcard that hasn't been posted to the blog yet, but more clearly shows the mid-block area circa 1909.
**He is recorded as "Siegfried" in the 1910 Census.