Feature 225: 101-105 South Main Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Mize Building (smaller corner building) Wilson Block.
Architectural Style: Modern.
Construction Date: ca. 1880s-1890.
Period 2 of Harry S Truman's Life: Establishing Community Roots, 1890-1919.
Tax Identification: 26-230-15-01-02.
Legal Description: Old Town, lots 60 & 64.
Description: Two adjoining 2-story masonry commercial buildings; rectangular in shape; flat roof gently sloping behind parapets; brick exterior (2nd floor above windows & on north side wall); large plate glass display windows (west facade) & double-hung sash windows (2nd-floor bay window on north side); louvered shutters over other window openings (2nd floor); recessed diagonal corner entrance (once with [multiple] S. Main St. addresses). Located on a prominent corner lot at S. Main St. and E. Lexington Ave. across from Courthouse; sidewalks extend along the west facade & north side wall.
• Alterations: Remodeled around 1907; 2nd-story bay window added to 107 E. Lexington Ave. building before 1950; dark brick exterior on 2-bay-wide northern building & 7-bay-wide southern building, both facing Main St., & 7-bay-wide eastern building facing E. Lexington Ave., all 3 unified with same exterior treatment; window openings unchanged but covered on west-facing facades & north side wall along Lexington Ave.; transom lights above ground-floor display windows covered; some details in parapets removed.
History/Significance: Members of the Mize family owned these buildings & operated drug stores & pharmacies in them.
Contributing 2-story brick commercial block: One smaller brick building at the corner, possibly built in the 1880s, a large building (7 bays with a stepped parapet fronting on S. Main St.) built around 1890 & soon after extended in the rear to join partially in the rear with the large 7-bay-wide building with a pointed, centered parapet fronting on E. Lexington Ave., built in the 1890s. These two larger brick buildings envelope the small corner brick building.
The older smaller corner building was owned by Robert D. Mize for a time around the turn of the 20th century. By 1892, the building housed "drugs," according to the Sanborn Company fire insurance map of Independence. The building was vacant for a period in the mid-1890s. Robert Mize, a drug store merchant, may have conducted business in this corner building at that time. By 1906, the building housed Thomas J. Walker's Drug Store. That year, the June 6, 1906, issue of the "Independence Examiner" reported that: R.D. Mize had just sold his "business house (measuring 21' x 58') at the southeast corner of the square to Ferdinand Carl (for $8,000). The store is occupied by T.J. Walker's drug store."
Robert Mize, active in civic affairs, became a member of the Jackson County Court in the early 1910s, & eventually achieved the honorific title of "Judge Mize." Robert Mize's nephew, Mize Peters, moved into Walker's Drug Store around 1910. The drug store of Mize Peters, a boyhood friend of Harry S Truman, occupied this building for decades. Succeeding in this business venture, the Mize Peters family moved to a larger home at 305 N. Delaware St. [Feature 048], directly across Truman Rd. from the Truman Home at 219 N. Delaware St. [Feature 042]. By 1924, the Peters family had moved again, this time to 631 N. Delaware St. [Feature 104], where the Peters family resided into the 1950s.
The large brick block facing S. Main St., known as the Wilson Block in the early 1900s, housed 2 shops on the ground floor for many years & professional offices (dentists, doctors, etc.) on the second floor. A stairway up from Main St. between the two shops provided access to the 2nd floor. During the 1890s and early 1900s, a grocery occupied the northern-most shop space; a saloon was in the southern shop. By 1907, a feed store had replaced the grocery store, and a billiard hall had moved into the saloon. A confectionary shop filled the northern shop in 1911; sometime in the 1920s, Piggly Wiggly grocery store moved into this shop & remained there for many years. By that time, the building had been renamed the "Carl Building." In the mid-1900s, Milgram, a grocery, occupied both buildings.
The 3rd brick commercial building originally housed 2 shop spaces, separated by a brick wall and a center stairway providing access to 2nd-floor rooms. The eastern-most space was occupied by several businesses over the years, including a grocery (early 1890s), a furnishings store (late 1890s), a printing shop (2nd floor around 1907), and a harness shop (in the 1910s). The western space in this building was originally connected in the rear to the large brick block facing Main St. In the early 1900s, it was part of the Himes & Frisbey Feed & Fuel Supply Company store. By 1916, it had acquired a separate use, & housed a barbershop. By 1930, the Samuel Sher dry goods business occupied both eastern & western shop spaces.