The Way We Were…

The southern end of the west 100 block of Louisiana Avenue in downtown Perrysburg, Ohio, developed from the early 1830s as a varied business district of grocery, dry goods, hardware and drug stores, along with several saloons, on a street locally called Main Street and officially named in honor of the 1810 town of Orleans once located below Fort Meigs. Perrysburg extended north to south from Front Street to South Boundary and east to west from Hickory to Mulberry Streets. Among the block’s oldest and best-known buildings was the Eagle Hotel of the 1830s, later renamed the Baird House and then the Franklin House; after remodeling in 1858 it became known as the Phoenix Block, was divided by an interior wall in 1871, and for more than 60 years housed Kazmaier’s Grocery on the south side, joined in 1903 by Neiderhouse Meat Market on the north side, while other occupants included William Cook’s agricultural implements business, the drug stores of A.R. Champney and Charles Wright, Peck & Hamilton hardware supplies, and Mills Hardware from 1964 to 2013. Nearby, the Fuller Building housed Perrysburg Used Goods in the early and mid-1960s, then the Medicine Chest, Westhaven Discount, Hub Fuller’s dry goods business after it moved from across the street, Grogan Realty, and later Sargent Associates, Inc. in the 1980s. The 122-120 address, once likely two separate businesses, became a single occupied space from the early 1950s, beginning with Carl Steinman’s Chrysler dealership and drive-in service center, followed by the Evinrude Boat Shop, the Sport Shop, and the Kid’s Tree House. At 118-116, a house built in 1832 by Perrysburg’s first mayor, John C. Spink, passed after his early death to his widow and then to Miss Harriet Hulburd, who also inherited the large Gothic turreted brick building next door; in 1861 the Village Council established Perrysburg’s first public library in the Spink house using books from the estate of local attorney Willard V. Way, and when the collection outgrew that house the books were moved into the brick building before the library relocated in 1881 to the corner of Indiana and Louisiana. In 1869 Charles Witzler bought the brick building from Miss Hulburd, lowered the floor, installed a plate-glass display window for his furniture business, and, with the Witzler family, also provided undertaking services. In later years the building and its lower front addition housed jewelry stores, A and A Creations, a dog grooming business, the C and F Variety Store, Jenschke’s Little Mall, Anna’s Plant Parlor, the Salvation Army Store, Tom’s Auto Parts, Perrysburg Antique Market, and Divine Designs.

Perrysburg, Ohio · United States