South Main in Bowling Green changed through the growth, adaptation, and reuse of several prominent late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings. At 139-143 S. Main St., Albert Froney built three separate buildings from 1892 to 1895 that became one of the largest department stores in northwest Ohio outside of some stores in Toledo. Froney, a native of Germany who came to the United States in 1847 at age 5, was educated in Elmore, clerked in a dry goods store in Pemberville at age 16 for $5 per month, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, then opened his own store, moved to Bowling Green, and built both his home in the Boom Town Historic District in 1888 and the Froney Store in 1892 before expanding it by 1895. After his death in 1911, the business continued as Froney's Department Store until 1945, then became Lasalle's Department Store, later Macy's in 1982, Uhlman's Department Store by 1986, and Stage Department Store from 1997 to 2000 before closing near the start of the new millennium; local investors later remodeled the buildings, with luxury apartments on the second floor and a restaurant and jewelry store on the first floor, and the property became part of the Main Street Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Nearby, the Hankey Taber Opera House was built in 1889 by Ira C. Taber and John R. Hankey during the oil and gas boom as a large venue for political conventions, Shakespearean plays, vaudeville acts, and other community gatherings. In 1903, oil tycoon Murray Chidester bought it, renamed it the Chidester Theater, and extensively remodeled it with architect David Stine into a four-level theater with balconies, electric lights, boiler heat, and public restrooms; it was regarded as one of the most beautiful small theaters in the country, and the first annual commencement of the Bowling Green State Normal College was held there on July 29, 1915. In 1918, it became the Del-Mar Theater and also housed an interurban rail ticket station, but a massive fire destroyed it on September 29, 1926, and it was never rebuilt. The nearby Hankey Building, built in 1892 north of the opera house, survived that fire and remains an important part of South Main Street. Its first floor first housed J.W. Knight and Prieur Hardware, its upper floors held meeting space and a large assembly room, and its third floor was the scene of the 1918 murder of Edmund Keep during a card game; local folklore holds that he still haunts the third floor. The buff brick building retains original features including classical stone trim, dentils, brackets supporting the cornice, and fin work along the roof line, and it too is part of the Main Street Historic District.