Stockert Building 1904

Daniel Farnsworth traded much of the southern portion of Staten Island for 3,500 acres of land in western Virginia, moved west, and in the summer of 1821 settled on the banks of the Buckhannon River with his wife and five sons. His grandson Leonard Farnsworth, born in 1830 to Nathaniel and Susanna Farnsworth, went to California in 1849 during the early Gold Rush and later returned to Upshur County as a prosperous businessman. Leonard S. bought half of this block and built a 2-story house and two retail store buildings, one used as a shoemakers shop and the other as a confectionary. In 1901 he sold the property to Gustav F. and John M. Stockert, sons of German immigrant Julius F. Stockert, who had come to West Virginia in 1871. In 1904 the Stockert brothers demolished the L.S. Farnsworth building and erected a new structure whose first and second floors housed a dry goods store and whose third floor contained two offices and an assembly hall. By 1908 the basement operated as a bowling alley. In 1940 Kroger's took over the first floor and basement while the second floor and mezzanine became office space. In 1949 G.C. Murphy's 5 and 10 expanded into the first floor and mezzanine from adjacent buildings to the west, where it had operated since the 1930s. In 1998 Clifford J. and Jeannie Rylands acquired the building and converted it into the restaurant C.J. Maggie's American Grill.

Buckhannon, West Virginia · United States