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 and 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] South Main Street addresses). Sidewalks extend along the west facade & north side wall; a single tree stands along the north side wall.
• Alterations: Remodeled around 1907; 2nd-story bay window added to 107 East Lexington Avenue building before 1950; dark brick exterior on 2-bay-wide northern building & 7-bay-wide southern building, both facing Main Street, & 7-bay-wide eastern building facing East Lexington Avenue, all 3 unified with same exterior treatment; window openings unchanged but covered on west-facing facades and north side wall along Lexington Avenue; 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 and pharmacies in them. Mize Peters, a childhood friend of Harry Truman, operated one of these businesses for several decades.
Contributing two-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 South Main Street) built around 1890 &, possibly, 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 East Lexington Avenue, built in the 1890s. These 2 larger brick buildings envelope the small corner brick building.
The older smaller corner building was apparently owned by Robert D. Mize for a time around the turn of the twentieth century. By 1892, the building housed "drugs," according to the Sanborn Company fire insurance map of Independence published that year. 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, however, 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's nephew, Mize Peters, moved into Walker's Drug Store, possibly around 1910. The drug store of Mize Peters, a boyhood friend of Harry S Truman, occupied this building for decades. Apparently succeeding in this business venture, the Mize Peters family moved to a larger home at 305 North Delaware Street [Feature 048], directly across Truman Road from the Truman Home at 219 North Delaware Street [Feature 042]. By 1924, the Peters family had moved again, this time to 631 North Delaware Street [Feature 104], where the Peters family resided into the 1950s.
The large brick block facing South Main Street, 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 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, & a billiard hall had moved into the saloon. A confectionery shop filled the northern shop in 1911; probably 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. 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), & a harness shop (in the 1910s). By 1916, it housed a barbershop. By 1930, the Samuel Sher dry goods business apparently occupied both eastern & western shop spaces.
Note: Due to character limits, see the original 2011 nomination form for a full description of this feature.