This week’s announcement that the old Schempf Bros. Store building, for nearly a century a retail anchor store in Watertown, had been sold, is big news indeed.
Bill Lindborg, a Long Beach, Calif., redeveloper of old buildings of this type and a descendant of the Schempf family here in Watertown, has a big vision for the property and he plans to move quickly to start the restoration process…
This week’s announcement that the old Schempf Bros. Store building, for nearly a century a retail anchor store in Watertown, had been sold, is big news indeed.
Bill Lindborg, a Long Beach, Calif., redeveloper of old buildings of this type and a descendant of the Schempf family here in Watertown, has a big vision for the property and he plans to move quickly to start the restoration process.
The Schempf building, located on the south side of Main Street between Second and Third streets, was most recently the location of Calico Cottage and before that it was the Kline’s Department Store.
The building has been vacant for some years and getting it renovated and back in retail service or something related has been a priority for local community leaders. Announcement of the sale this week was well received by all those involved with the downtown.
Schempf’s store was known as the “Big Cash Store” and was part of the community from 1848 when it was founded right up until it closed in 1936. The store originally had a large grocery department as well as general dry goods and was a meeting place in the community for decades. But eventually, the changes in retail environment made it impossible for the company to go on and the doors were closed for the last time in May of 1936.
Our friends at the Watertown Historical Society provided some interesting information on the history of the company and the other stores at that location. We’ll share some of that here.
The store was founded by George S. Schempf and he quickly brought in his nephews Leonard and John as partners.
In 1903 the store completed a vast expansion project which included the construction of a third floor on the building. The historical society report said the third floor stocked such items as “cloaks, shirts, wastes, furs, carpets, rugs, curtains, draperies and fancy arts goods.”
The grand opening included gas lighting in the new store and music by the Apollo Orchestra. Almost everyone in the community came for the first day of business on the third floor.
That date also marked an important milestone in the city. That was the first day a passenger elevator had been used in the city. Schempf’s installed a three-story elevator as part of the expansion and third floor addition. It was quite an addition to the store and a positive development for the entire community.
A year later an electric cable cash system was installed which allowed for all transactions to be directed immediately to the cashier’s office with changes and receipts coming back in short order.
That cash system reminded us of the old system in place for many years at Fischer’s Department Store. That system consisted of pneumatic tubes which had cash and the purchase listing quickly whisked up to the office where they were tabulated and the change returned the same way. It was fascinating to watch.
Then, a few months later, in May of 1904, a huge grand opening celebration was held at the store. Once again, an orchestra played for hours and mobs of people came through the store all day long.
The historical society records show the large three-story brick block building was part of a remodeling project between 1901 and 1909. One section was 209-211 E. Main St., the original two-story building constructed for George Schempf in 1855. Another section was 207 E. Main St., which was the two-story former Kusel Hardware Building which was constructed in 1866 and at the end of the block was 213 E. Main St., which was a two-story Schempf building constructed about 1864 for Sproesser Jewelry.
These were all combined in the early 1900s into the Schempf Bros. Department Store and that was a huge amount of retail space.
In 1911 the company’s capital stock was increased from $75,000 to $100,000, making Schempf Bros. one of the best financed retail businesses in the state.
Those were the heydays, but gradually the retail business world changed and then by 1936 it was closed.
The historical society records indicate that shortly after the business closed, Montgomery Ward and S.S. Kresge’s took over the building and divided it into two separate businesses.
Those businesses continued at that location for a long time, before closing. The dates of the closings were not clear.
Kline’s Department Store, which was headquartered in New York City, opened at the southeast corner of Third and Main streets in 1959 and remained at that location until it moved to the old Kresge/Montgomery Ward location in October of 1983.
Kline’s did a major makeover of the dramatically expanded space and continued in that location for a number of years before closing because of the continued changing retail landscape.
Once again the building was vacant, but a while later Calico Cottage leased the space and kept retailing going there. Ultimately in 2007 Calico Cottage moved to a location in the shopping complex on South Church Street, once again leaving the large building vacant.
The building had been vacant for nearly eight years before this week’s announcement of its sale to William Lindborg. Over the years there were different proposals for using the building, one of which was for a shooting range and gun shop, but none materialized.
It was a long wait to get an entrepreneur interested in developing the building to its fullest potential but from this perspective it sure looks like it was forth the wait.
We visited with Bill and others regarding the building and the consensus is that the building’s basic structure is in excellent shape and that with some renovations and improvements it should be a crown jewel of an asset for not only downtown Watertown but the entire community.
There’s a lot of good things going on in Watertown, but we just need to bring a few of them to fruition to spur even more economic growth in the community get us back on a path of more solid economic growth.
When we talked with Bill earlier this week he mentioned many of the local ties he and his family has with some of the pioneer settlers in Watertown and the subsequent community leaders. We’ll talk more about that another time.
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