Feature 202: 100-102 North Liberty Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Owens Building/Gilbert and Whitney Store.
Architectural Style: Italianate.
Construction Date: ca. 1870s (altered recently).
Period 1 of Harry S Truman's Life: The Period of Pre-Significance, before 1890.
Tax Identification: 26-230-11-11.
Legal Description: Old Town, part of lot 51.
Description: Contributing two-story masonry commercial building; rectangular in shape; flat roof behind parapet; brick exterior; large plate glass display windows across east-facing facade (ground floor) and double-hung sash windows (second floor), seven bays on east wall and six bays on south wall; recessed entrances on facade. This building has two entrance doors and two street addresses, but is currently occupied by one store that uses the historic name, "Gilbert and Whitney Store.” Located on the northwest corner of North Liberty and West Lexington across from the Courthouse; sidewalks extend along the east facade and south wall; building adjoins on the north and west.
• Alterations: This building was originally two adjoining buildings unified by an Italianate style remodeling completed in the 1870s or early 1880s; since 1950s, decorative brackets on cornice have been removed; decorative hood molding above second-floor windows on facade removed; ground-floor display windows altered; paint on exterior walls removed; major rehabilitation in 2000-2002. The "Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation" was followed when rehabilitating the exterior.
History/Significance: This building was built on the site of the Gilbert and Whitney Store, which was constructed in 1832-1833. The present building was constructed in the 1870s or early 1880s, which added a second floor and gave it an Italianate style exterior facade. Sanborn fire insurance maps of Independence (1885, 1892, 1898, 1907, 1916) show that the two halves of this building were historically different lengths, suggesting that if may have been two separate buildings, which were substantially remodeled in the 1870s resulting in a second-floor addition and an Italianate style exterior, a popular style at that time.
The original owners/occupants of this building are not known with certainty. Joseph J. Owens, involved in Independence for years, may have been responsible for the building's construction or its substantial remodeling; it was known as the Owens Building in the early 1900s. In the mid-1800s, two shops occupied the ground floor; a drug store was in the northern half and a business selling books and stationary occupied the southern half. Soon, boots and shoes were sold from the northern shop.
As early as 1906, Pendleton and Gentry, druggists, conducted business in the northern shop and Rummell and Reick Shoes held forth in the southern shop. (Pendleton and Gentry was reportedly one of the oldest continuously operated drug stores in the Independence area.) Around 1910, when some interior changes were made (including the removal of stairs ascending the rear west wall of the southern shop and the installation of stairs from Liberty Street along the northern side wall of the northern shop), the two businesses switched their shop spaces. Pendleton and Gentry Drugs, operated by Fleming Pendleton and Overton Gentry, did business in the southern shop space, at 100 North Liberty Street, and Julius Rummell and Rosetta Reick conducted their business at 102 North Liberty Street in the northern shop space. Joseph Owens had his real estate office on the second floor around that time. Rummell and Reick had sold their business by the mid-1900s, but Pendleton and Gentry continued operating their drug store on the same location into the 1930s. At that time, Robinson Shoe Company occupied the northern shop space.
Note: In 2011, this building was addressed 104 North Liberty Street.