Bolln Dry Goods Store

The successful German immigrant grocer, George Bolln, constructed this building in 1898, when he decided to expand into the retail dry goods business. Of red brick, and sporting an ornate, cast-iron storefront imported from Saint Louis, it is vastly superior, in materials and workmanship, to the rather ramshackle wood-frame structure he had purchased in 1888, to house his newly-founded grocery. Interestingly, the building he later in turn constructed to replace the original grocery bore virtually no resemblance to this 1898 Dry Goods Store (apart, that is, from the primary material, red brick). Apparently, Bolln was more concerned with maintaining a visual distinction between the two businesses than with establishing a harmonious visual relation between the two buildings. In distinct contrast, then, to the unremarkable, raised-brick ornament incorporated on the façade of the later Grocery, the Dry Goods Store exhibits an elaborate, Neo-Classical style ceramic cornice and a decorative frieze above the second story windows, upon which is prominently inscribed the date of its construction, “1898.” Personifying the character of its owner, the dry goods building was not allowed to rest as-built, but was expanded within the decade to fill the entire lot apportioned to it.