Historic Preservation Commission - City of Spencer

04/10/2024

Fantastic presentation!

EP Arnold and Arnold Motor Supply presented by Eric Johnson 4-2-2024

04/02/2024

First of the lecture series to start shortly! Feel free to tune into the City of Spencer's page to learn about the history of EP Arnold, and Arnold Motor Supply!

02/28/2024

Interested in learning more about the History of Spencer?
Please join us throughout the month of April for a series of presentations put on by the Spencer Historic Preservation Commission, Spencer Municipal Utilities, and our wonderful line up of volunteer speakers.
Please see the attachment below for more information.

09/27/2020

Thank you to all the people who showed up to help during our first ever Restoration at Riverside. We are beyond grateful to those who worked to clean off the oldest veterans gravestones in the cemetery. HPC also wants to recognize Commissioner Maureen Oechslin for heading up this project, Commissioner Justin Thomas for his computer skills, Bill McAlpine with the Sons of the Civil War for his work coordinating, the Boy Scouts, Robin Larsen, Dave Schaeffer and Jared Elbert with the City for all the prep!! What a great effort by everyone. Thank you!!

06/27/2020

Scans of cards showing the devastation of Spencer's Great Fire of 1931.

06/19/2020

By August 6th, plans for the building on the northeast corner of Fourth Street and Main (Grand Avenue) were published.

The building, budgeted at $80,000, would be home to the Rexall drug store, the William Flindt Clothing company, and the Bee Hive with office space above Rexall's and apartments above the latter two businesses. Dougher, Rich & Woodburn, architects, planned display windows to face Fourth Street to "make the structure exceptionally well appealing."

Image appeared in the August 6th, 1931, edition of the Spencer Reporter.

06/04/2020

By Thursday, July 23rd, actual plans were drawn for buildings to replace those lost in the fire.
On the northwest corner of Fourth and Main (Grand) Avenue, one new structure to replace the homes of Clay County National Bank, Bjornstad hardware stores, Bjornstad drug store, Graham department store, and the Stemes store. The "ultra-metropolitan air" was assured to lend a beauty to the avenue "unsurpassed in northwest Iowa." McAllister Block Company intended to put the contract out to let by early August.
The Northwest Ice Cream Company didn't only have plans for a new building at 515 Main; it was already under construction. It expected the $16,000 structure to be open by September 1 to house Hammer & Marten restaurant and Nelson & Madson Grand billiard parlor.
The Blain Asher lot was to be replaced by an arcade-type building, the first of its kind in northwest Iowa, full of light with polished decorative stone on the facade. It was to have ten shops, a ten foot corridor, and be lit during the days through large skylights and at night by high-powered light globes. Designed with terra cotta throughout the building, it was budgeted at $18,000 and hoped to bring a ladies clothing shop, a haberdashery, a beauty shop, and real estate upon opening.
It was 26 days after the fire.
Images appeared in the July 23rd edition of the Spencer Reporter.

05/21/2020

While Spencer went about business of clearing the remains of what was and getting ready to rebuild, the merchants determined to soldier on and find a way to serve their customers.

Here are a few ads from July, 1931 editions of the Spencer Reporter. The safe deposit boxes at Clay County National Bank were opened and found to be in good condition. Farmer's Trust and Savings Bank would temporarily halt its Saturday night hour of operation, which seems foreign now. Temporary homes were built for Bjornstad drug store and Bjornstad hardware store while Twetten Furniture Co. moved to Schoeneman Lumber.

K&D Bootery found a temporary home as well, but it took out an actual ad to address news floating around town. The rumor ad is, without question, an oddity.

05/07/2020

As we continue the story of rebuilding Spencer, we have an image of downtown after clearing of the rubble.

This photograph, as it appeared on the front page of the July 16th, 1931 edition of The Spencer Reporter, looks to the northeast corner of Main (Grand Avenue) and Fifth. From the previous week's news, construction of a new theater to replace the Salon was already underway with "building material arriving daily."

The Reporter also detailed changes to the building ordinance following the devastating fire. All buildings would be required to be constructed out of stone, brick, cement, or hard-burned clay, and any structure surviving the fire would need approval from an engineer or architect for use in reconstruction. No frame building was to be allowed, roofs were required to be made of incombustible material, and firewalls were to extend three feet above the roof level.

Almost ninety years later... so far, so good, changes to the building ordinance. Well done!

04/30/2020

To start the Spencer HPC page we thought we would glance back at July 9, 1931.

Just eleven days after the fire, with hundreds of workers continuing to clear away debris, Spencer had already started working toward its new downtown. Three of the destroyed blocks made the news.

On the east side of Main (Grand Avenue), between Fourth and Fifth Streets, as much as $200,000 earmarked for new buildings. Several property owners, including J.A. Cummings, Mrs. R.E. Fraser, and L.H. Rasmusson, would be involved in the project to replace downtown fixtures such as Rexall Drug Store and the Grand Opera House.

Directly across Main, the McAllister Block company planned a $100,000 expenditure for the Bjornstad Drug store, the Bjornstad Hardware Store, and the Clay County National Bank. Two additional store locations were also in the works.

Finally, back to the east side of Main once again and north of fifth, Northwest Iowa Ice Cream targeted reconstruction to begin within the month while Spencer Car Storage stated its intention to rebuild in the near future. However, with this constituting the big news of July 9, Fred Moore was first with a shovel in the ground for his new theatre to replace the Salon for $50,000.

All buildings planned to use fire resistant materials; indeed, the city council was already moving to update the building code to prevent another such disaster.

In less than two weeks, Spencer was moving forward and climbing out of the ash and rubble.