After the major fire in Central City on May 21, 1874 nearly wiped out the city's commercial district, a new building was completed by November 1st that year. B.F. Pease operated a dry goods store there for nearly 10 years, and the property also housed an undertaking parlor for a time. Its longest residing business was the office of the Observer Publishing Co., which published the Gilpin County Observer newspaper. Around the turn of the century, Ignatz Meyer acquired the building, and in 1901 he added a second story and modernized the main floor. His saloon became one of the principal businesses in the city until prohibition forced the business to become a pool hall. After the building was sold at tax sales twice in the 1930s, Henry Toll purchased it in 1940. In 1948 it returned to the business of selling alcohol as Emmy Wilson's Glory Hole Tavern, and restoration was completed March 1st, 1992.