Industry and Notable Buildings

In Glen Carbon, the Odd Fellow organization erected the Odd Fellow Building in the 1890's as a meeting place. Originally a two-story building, its second story held lodge rooms for the Odd Fellows and the Rebekah's, while the first floor was occupied by Singletary's store, where a young Mr. Rasplica learned his trade. Although the top story was later removed, the building served generations as a community gathering place for vaudeville shows, dances, plays, concerts, 8th grade graduation ceremonies, schoolhouse public meetings, Catholic chicken dinners, and Kiwanis pancake breakfasts, and it was later remodeled as the home of Stepping Stones Child Care. Samuel Birger built his first store, a frame building measuring 18 by 32 feet and 18 feet high, in 1893, then built a handsome two-story brick store that operated as a fully stocked dry goods business on the first floor with family living quarters above. In 1950, his son Bernard donated 5 acres to newly formed District #7 for an elementary school site in Glen Carbon. Around 1900, Charles Wieduwilt operated a barber shop. The Glen Carbon Mercantile Company occupied a Victorian structure that existed as a company store at the time of the village's incorporation in 1892, when brothers Louis and John Diebert bought the business and began the company; the coal company continued issuing warrants to miners to trade there on credit. Located on the west side of Main and Collinsville streets, the building later housed The Candlelight Lounge restaurant for several years before it burned beyond repair in the 1970's.

Glen Carbon, Illinois · United States