LASALLE, Ill. (AP) - When Mike Bird began renovating a brick building in downtown La Salle in late December, he heard it was an auto dealership.
“I’ve researched it back to 1889 when the property was transferred. But it’s very hard to read and trying to decipher who technically owned it and for what purpose,” Bird said.
Bird, owner of MBird Construction LLC of La Salle, and his crew are demolishing interior structures so they can build out spaces for retail. Since he started, Bird has uncovered more history, getting help here and there and saving artifacts found inside the two-story building.
“I started digging and it became an obsession. I’m trying to find out everything. It’s very complex. It seems like there’s been 20-plus businesses that have been through here,” Bird said.
Bird opened a doorway to the basement and across from the landing was a tiny closet constrained by a slanted ceiling and filled with trash. On his knees with a work light, Bird pawed through debris and handed items to his workers.
Two tin Cawley Realty signs. An earlier deed transaction for the building listed the owner as Ryan Cawley, a La Salle businessman who died in 2011. Bird shared these signs with Cawley family members.
A few more curiosities came out and then Bird found sales brochure advertising new 1935 Dodge models. A ramp at the rear of the building was likely used to move cars between the first and second floors, he said.
“The whole infrastructure on that first floor is all steel I-beams up in the ceilings,” Bird said. “So it was meant to hold the weight of cars upstairs.”
A 2004 report, “Downtown La Salle, Illinois Historic and Architectural Survey,” provided by Nathan Watson, a developer working on the nearby Hotel Kaskaskia, said Roy Homer Autos was at Bird’s building from 1930-35 followed by Kelso Motor Sales, 1940-45, Liesse-Crouch Motors from 1948-50, and May Auto Sales in 1960.
In the closet, Bird found a concert poster advertising, “Dance to the Music of Charlie Agnew.” Agnew (1901-1978) was a swing band leader based in Chicago and popular from the 1920s through the 1940s. The poster says the concert would be at the Auditorium Ballroom in La Salle.
The historic survey says “In 1926, an entertainment/dancing concern operated on the second floor.” In the closet, Bird found paper tags printed with “J&W Furniture Co., 431 First St., 3 doors west of Auditorium Ball Room.”
Bird walked next door to Herrcke’s Hardware and learned from manager Bill Hubbard that Herrcke’s was built in 1925. Hubbard pointed to a photo on his office wall. J&W is visible to the immediate west of Herrcke’s.
Based on courthouse records, Bird believes his building was constructed in 1915 and expanded in 1918.
The historic survey shows the first business there was Clinch’s Transfer Lines from 1911-12, after which it was Central Garage from 1913-29. “Central Garage” can be seen today painted on the exterior corner facing Wright Street.
A 1916 La Salle newspaper brief, dug up by Bird’s father, Larry Bird, said J.J, Clinch was awarded a contract to haul mail. “During the past years the Central Garage Co. had this contract, however, the Clinch Company carried the mail for many years previous to that.”
Bird walked across Wright Street to La Salle Dental Laboratory. Roger Vulcani and his wife, Carol and Roger’s brother, Don Vulcani, filled in more gaps. The building once housed City Furniture, owned by the late big band leader, Johnnie Kaye. There also was a clothing shop, The Clothes Horse, and Ashley’s Garage.
Causa’s Gymnastics Center operated there from 1980 to 2002, according to News Tribune archives. Bird found a gymnastics poster on an office wall inside the building.
The historical survey says La Salle School of Beauty and Culture was at the site from 1965-67, which matches a photo Bird has from the 1960s showing “La Salle School of Beauty” in a front window. The survey says J&D Used Furniture operated there in the early- to mid-1980s.
Bird and his crew place relics they find on a window counter on the first floor. It has become a makeshift, dusty start to a museum: three whiskey bottles, an old comic book, a torn pulp fiction crime novel, a typewriter manual, matchbooks, a wood-encased speaker, and tickets to see the Blue Barron orchestra July 28, 1940 at Starved Rock State Park.
Bird wants to fill in more gaps.
“A lot of people say the Hudson dealership was in here but there is no proof that it was in here,” Bird said. “But I do have proof that there was a Nash dealership that was in here and then a Dodge dealership was in here. It’s definitely fun trying to piece in the puzzle.”
Bird is trying to get the first floor in shape for retail leases by late spring.
“Ideally if I can make this last another 100 years, that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s kind of a cool building,” Bird said.
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Source: The (LaSalle) News-Tribune, https://bit.ly/2kqKb5c
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Information from: News-Tribune, https://www.newstrib.com
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