The recent renovations on 400 Vine Street and its occupation by Poplar Bluff Realty is just one more step in the historic journey of a structure that has been a part of Poplar Bluff history for over 130 years.
The building was originally built in 1883 by George Begley, Poplar Bluff’s first blacksmith. Begley, who was also a wagon maker, came to Poplar Bluff in 1877 after learning his trades in Ironton, Pilot Knob and St. Louis, and Red Bud and Alton, Illinois. He chose the corner of Broadway and Vine and built a two-story brick building.
In 1910, Begley retired from all his business ventures to spend his life hunting and fishing. He would pass in 1941 at the age of 82. Two years prior to his retirement, he sold the building to Lambert Jansen and Lary Cravens.
It gained a new life as part of a growing trend of businesses in Poplar Bluff. At that time there were 40 drinking establishments in Butler County and Poplar Bluff, with a population of 6,900, had 14 of them. Jansen and Cravens was open at 400 Vine St. It was listed as having rooms for let and in that day, it was understood that hotels often had a saloon attached to them.
Over the next 12 years, it would be listed in the Poplar Bluff city directories as The World’s Fair Saloon (1911), Jansen and Cravens Saloon (1914) and Lary Cravens (1919).
During Prohibition in the 1920s, it was the Graham Drug Company. A provision of the 18th amendment allowed drug stores to sell liquor to those with a prescription for it, but there is no evidence of this from the location.
The building was in the path of a tornado that swept through Poplar Bluff on Monday, May 9, 1927. Every building on the Broadway block was damaged and most destroyed, but not this one. It was one of the few left standing and became Cravens and McCormick Soft Drinks in 1929.
In the 1960s, the building housed the Borth Drug Store but over the next several decades it would have many different faces. It was the Wig Chateau of Alice Bandy in 1971 and the Book Nook of Donald and Naomi Murray from 1972 to 1975. It changed businesses rapidly for a while, being the Open Door Coffee Shop in 1977, the PB Discount Store in 1978 and a business of Art Fletcher’s called Rainy Day People in 1979.
Dorothy Gray moved her books from 107 S. Broadway to the location and it was The Book Nook again in 1981-82. The Book Nook moved again and the building held The Corner Outlet, operated by Karen Crismon in 1983. Next came Skile’s Ceramics and then T&T Ceramics under the management of Treva and Teresa Skiles in 1985-86.
Doniphan resident Cheryl Purcell had Cheryl’s Shop in the building from 1987 to 1990 and The Family Counseling Center occupied the building from 1996-2001.
Now, it has been refurbished inside and out and houses the new business.
The following sources were consulted in the creation of this article: History of Butler County Missouri by David Bruce Deem, Complete History of Poplar Bluff by Robert H. Forister, Butler County: A Pictorial History (Volumes I and II) by John Stanard and Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1949 by David E. Kyvig.