Looking Back: Sellers & Bartling building

Editor’s note: Here’s how the Brookings Register reported on the construction of a new downtown building in May of 1926.

 

E.R. Bartling of the furniture company Sellers & Bartling let the contract for the most imposing of the new business blocks on Main Street to the Wold-Mark Construction company on Monday evening of this week.  Work is starting immediately.

 

The new building will be at the corner of Main and Williams Street, the corner now occupied by the Standard Clothing store and Otto Hagen’s Quick Lunch.  The clothing store will be torn down, but the lunch room will be moved partially onto the street so Mr. Hagen can continue in business, it is understood.

 

The block will have a frontage of 50 feet on Main Street and will extend back 165 feet clear to the alley at the Corner Grocery.  It will be two stories in height, with a full basement, and will contain more floor space than any other business block in the city. 

 

It will be of the latest construction, thoroughly fire proof and beautiful enough to compare with any of the rest of the Main Street structures.

 

Messrs. Sellers & Bartling will occupy the largest space in the new building, with a store room opening on both Main and Williams Streets, being built around the corner store which will be occupied by the Matson Brothers drug store.  The owners will also have a part of the second floor and a substantial part of the basement.

 

Otto Hagen will occupy a part of the basement with his lunch room, and numerous other tenants will occupy space in the building.  On the upper floor will be a dance room for the use of parties, and here also will have numerous offices fitted up for professional firms of the city.  

 

Mr. Bartling is not yet ready to announce the complete list of tenants, but it is understood he has practically every part of the building leased.

 

The leases call for possession of the new rooms by January 1, but the construction company believes everything will be completed by December 1.  It is the largest job of construction so far announced for this year with the exception of the new college library.