The life of a building that has served the Poplar Bluff community for over 75 years is over. In the interest of public safety the city was forced to bring down the historic building on 211 Main St.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t salvageable,” said City Planner James Sisk. “We would have loved to have saved it. It just wasn’t possible.”
Water damage had rotted away the ends of the roof beams and the floors had collapsed inside the building, he said.
The brick building had sat vacant since 2004, when the last store to occupy it moved on to a new location. Its history, though, stretches all the way back to 1926, when it was the location of Kutchback and O’Hara Clothing.
The building may have been older, but city records don’t list it, according to officials. The records don’t show it as being destroyed when the F-4 tornado hit Poplar Bluff in 1927, but they do indicate it was damaged. The building was repaired and reappeared as the Family Shoe Store of J.O. Maske in 1929.
Under the management of Maske’s son I.O. Maske, Family Shoe Store provided footwear for Butler County residents for decades, according to historians. It was so well respected that in the 1930s, Butler County Sheriff Lester Massingham used a plane to bring in for trial a man who had forged a $25 check to the store, according to Poplar Bluff history recorded in Volume 1 of John Standard’s Butler County: A Pictorial History.
City directories show that I.O. Maske kept the store running through the war years of the 40s and 50s, gaining some help in 1960 when Helen Heineman joined him in managerial duties. The Family Shoe Store passed to his widow in 1972 and she ran it with Helen Ellis (formerly Heineman) and L. Bennett Willis of 799 Taft St., records show.
In 1976, after 47 years of ownership by the Maske family, Willis became the sole owner of Family Shoe Store. He ran the established shoe store for eight more years before selling it to Mike and Pam Horner of 1929 Fernwood, Poplar Bluff, in 1984. The Horners moved Family Shoe Store to 2176 N. Westwood in 1986 and for the first time in its long history, 211 Main was vacant, city records show.
According to city records, the building’s history through the rest of the 1980s and into the 1990s was sporadic. It got a revival as a shoe store when Garry Vester opened Garry’s Shoes for a couple of years in the 80s. Royal Optical occupied it in 1991.
It sat empty through most of the early 90s until local contractor Jim Champion used it as the office of Champion Windows in 1996 and 1997.
It had been empty for five years when Kelly Gordon of 238 Hampton Court opened Guys ‘N Dolls in the building in 2003. That store was the building’s last chance at serving the citizens of Butler County and when Guys ‘N Dolls moved on, the old building was done.
It sat empty for 18 years until the city was forced to reduce the former place of so much local commerce to an empty lot, officials report.
Crews have continued to clean up the demolition debris and the space is slated to become a green space.
Now visible, for the first time in approximately a century, are the stones laid to make up the building’s foundation.