Charming old buildings which might have been taken down

Yup.

 

The Zeppelin Tourist Camp along US Route 30 in Pennsylvania. The 60 by 20 foot structure was built in the 1920s. It was moved to an Ohio location just north of Deerfield in Edinburg on Route 14 in the 1950s where it was used as a Diner, Motel office, Private residence,and finally a storage building for a towing company. The aluminum zeppelin has since been scrapped.

 

I was loving it until the very last sentence.

 

Agreed

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY by Sharon Cummins
Forty Dock Square is for Sale!

If the buyer sees this little social media post maybe she will decide to keep the building’s rich history in mind as she renovates what some of you remember as The First National.

A shoe factory was built in that location in 1865 and in 1868, retired Kennebunkport sea captain Sylvester Brown became sole proprietor of the boot and shoe store in the two-story factory building. That building burned in the 1877 Dock Square fire.

Captain Sylvester Brown wasted no time in designing the current bigger and better structure to replace it. The arrival of his new building frame on the schooner Martha was reported in the Eastern Star in Feb 1878. The Captain’s new store opened for business that spring. He sold hats, caps, boots, shoes, and men’s furnishings of all kinds on the first floor. He fitted out the 3rd floor as a Masonic Hall to the exact specifications of his beloved Arundel Lodge No. 76. The Masonic Lodge continued to rent the third floor until the current Masonic Lodge was built on Temple Street in 1930. The Captain continued as proprietor of the “Brown Block” until his death in 1889. His wife and daughter took over the business and eventually sold it to George Bonser, the Kennebunk clothing and souvenir salesman.

During a freshet on March 1, 1896, the old wooden drawbridge connecting Dock Square to Lower Village collapsed. In September of 1896, the County Commissioners decided that the buildings on the Kennebunkport approach to the bridge should be moved back to make a wider roadway to the new bridge. The Brown Block was moved back six feet.

Many different kinds of businesses have occupied the first floor of Brown Block; a barber shop, a store selling tourist trinkets, and several drug stores. The First National Grocery Store opened there in 1927 and remained until the late 1950s when it was replaced by Colonial Pharmacy.

The second floor was occupied by the offices of the summer newspaper called The Wave in the late 1800s. In 1947, the Kennebunkport Visiting Nurse had offices up there until the late 1950s. What are you're earliest memories of the building? #kennebunkport