147 F Street

Description

Real estate appraisal card. 147 F Street, part of lots 14-17, block 22, in Salida, Colorado. Sanborn maps indicate that this building was erected between 1888 and 1890. The previous building at this location burned in the fire of January 1888, and the Sanborn map of 1888 shows a vacant lot. The present building appears on the 1890 map, when the building housed a saloon (143) and a meat store (147). The meat store was listed in the 1903-04 city directory as Max Lessing Meats. Lessing was also chief of the fire department. He advertised "only the choicest meats, both salt and fresh. Oysters and clams in season can be had at this market." By 1909 the business was known as the Enterprise Meat Market, still operated by Max Lessing. The saloon was replaced by a drugstore that was established in 1897 by R.F. Davis, who was succeeded by E.D. Thompson in 1900. Thompson was a graduate of Northwestern University. He operated a drugstore in Chicago before moving to Colorado in 1894. He lived in Denver before moving to Salida in 1900. Thompson sold drugs, oils, patent medicines, wines, liquors, toilet articles. stationery, rubber goods, sponges, and cigars. His soda fountain was called "a thing of beauty--perhaps the finest in this section of Colorado." In August 1901 George W. Armstrong bought Thompson's drugstore. He enlarged and remodeled the store. Armstrong advertised drugs, patent medicines, toilet articles, and perfumes. A biography of Armstrong published about 1905 called him "one of the leading merchants of Salida." Armstrong was a native of New York, where he attended school and worked in a bank. In 1864, 11e crossed the plains to Colorado, where mined for a year before returning to New York. He engaged in a mercantile business before coming back to Colorado in 1877 and took up mining in Central City. Unsuccessful in his mining ventures, he walked to Denver looking for work, arriving with ten cents in his pocket. Armstrong worked for the wholesale grocery of J.S. Brown & Co. in Denver. In 1880 he opened a grocery in West Denver and was elected to the city council. In 1882 he had started a general store in Montrose County, which expanded with branches in Gunnison County, Debeque, and Parachute. In 1910, Armstrong's drugstore business was purchased by W.C. Alexander, who then operated a drug and jewelry business together. The 1914 Sanborn map shows a grocery and meat store in 143 F St. and a drugstore in 147 F St. The 1922-23 and 1927-28 city directories list W.R. Crylie Meats In 143 F and Waggener's Pharmacy (C.Y. Waggener, proprietor) in 147 F St. By 1930-31 the drugstore had been replaced by Safeway Stores, Inc., Gilbert A. Griffith, manager. The 1945 Sanborn map shows a store and a drugstore in the building. In 1951 and 1961 a pharmacy known as Alexander's, Inc. was operating here owned by Jack Long. Then, it passed hands becoming Lallier's Pharmacy. Today, this is the Salida Five and Dime, noted for its Chaffee County Honor Roll Wall. The names of over 600 veterans were painted on the south wall in 1947. In 1964, the building was coated in stucco to protect the building and the names. In 2015, American Legion historian and veteran Dan Johnson, spearheaded the movement to uncover the stucco, restore the wall, and repaint the names of every Chaffee County veteran of that time. On July 4, 2016, the Chaffee County Honor Roll was rededicated. History Colorado's Architectural Inventory Forms have more information and are available at the Salida Library.