Peters Saloon

Henry Peters, a native of Germany, became a saloonist in the 1890s and did something unusual for a saloonkeeper by buying the property on which his rented saloon stood and building his own saloon at this location in 1910. When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, he and many fellow saloonkeepers converted their businesses to soft drink emporiums. Like other saloonkeepers, he sponsored his own baseball team, the Peters. After his death in 1925, the building housed Linder's Dry Goods Store. In 1930, the General Radio and Supply Company moved into the building. Beginning as a radio and appliance store, the company evolved, and after World War II it billed itself as the "House … of Modern Living" and promoted postwar consumerism with new products such as air conditioners and power lawn mowers. Soon after beginning to sell televisions in 1949, the company deemphasized radios and adopted the name of General Supply Company in the late 1950s. The company continued to sell appliances until 1975. Furniture stores and businesses associated with the Yale Professional Law Enforcement Institute followed into the building. William L. Enyart and his wife, Judge Annette Eckert, purchased the property in 1993 and restored it according to the specifications of the Illinois Main Street Program. Bethany Place, an AIDS service organization, and Curves for Women, a health club, were subsequent businesses here. Peace by Piece, a woman's apparel shop, opened at this location in 2009.

Belleville, Illinois · United States