Feature 239: 100-104 West Maple Avenue (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Clinton Block and Casper/Shimfessell Block.
Architectural Style: Commercial.
Construction Date: 1906-1907.
Period 2 of Harry S Truman's Life: Establishing Community Roots, 1890-1919.
Tax Identification: 26-230-03-16.
Legal Description: Old Town, lot 10 (Clinton's Subdivision, lots 3, 4, 5, and 6).
Description: Contributing two-story brick commercial building; rectangular in shape; flat roof sloping gently to the rear (north) concealed behind corbelled parapet; brick exterior with cut stone stringcourse above second-story windows; large plate glass display windows on ground floor with wood paneling above and below and paired one-over-one double-hung sash windows on second-floor of facade and also on east side wall; recessed entrance near corner and other shop entrances father west on facade; brick foundation. The building is located on the northwest corner of West Maple and North Main on the Courthouse Square; a sidewalk abuts building on south and east sides; a building known as the Clinton Building with the street address of 206 North Main [Feature 215] sites behind this property, on the rear, north sides.
• Alterations: First floor display windows and surrounds remodeled; transom lights covered; small window openings first-floor of east side wall filled in.
History/Significance: As a teenager, Harry Truman worked for George Clinton in his drugstore, formerly located on this site from the mid-1890s to 1906. This was Truman's first paying job for which he received $3 a week in salary. Biographer David McCullough explains, "Harry's job was to come in each weekday morning at 6:30 AM to open up the place, sweep the sidewalk, mop the floor, wipe the counters, and do as much overall dusting and cleaning as possible before seven o'clock when Mr. Clinton came down and it was time for Harry to leave for school.”
Even earlier, the wood-frame Noland House, a notable hostelry built in the 1840s that served freighters and travelers traveling over emigrant trails, once stood on this site. Destroyed by fire, the Noland House was rebuilt of brick. After the Civil War, M.S. Morgan obtained ownership of the Noland House. Upon Morgan's death, his wife continued to operate a hotel (Merchants Hotel in the 1880s and 1890s) in the building until George Clinton bought the building and established a drug store on the ground floor in the mid-1890s. George Clinton also built an addition on the rear north wall that housed businesses on the ground floor and city offices on the second floor. In mid-February 1906, flames consumed the Clinton Block and the adjoining Knoepker Building on West Maple Avenue (occupied by Knoepker and Knoepker dry goods); fire destroyed the entire front of the Clinton Block and caused the walls to come down, according to the February 15, 1906, issue of the "Independence Examiner.” The rear addition of the building, which housed city offices, was also badly damaged by flames and water.
James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton and also a druggist, bought the 22 x 80-foot damaged building and lot from his brother in May 1906 and immediately made plans to clear and erect a new building on the site. Less than a month later, George Clinton sold the remainder of his adjoining property (lots 4, 5, and 6) to Chris Casper and Walter Shimfessell for $10,000. (George Clinton opened a real estate business with offices on the second floor of 206 North Main Street [Feature 215] building north of the Clinton drug store.) They proceeded to construct a new building, which they intended to occupy with their own store. Robert L. McBride, Independence carpenter and contractor who trained under his contractor father and began contracting on his own around 1899, is believed to have constructed the new two-story building for James Clinton and also for Casper and Shimfessell. There is a slight step up in the parapet between the two adjoining businesses, possibly because the Casper and Shimfessell portion may have been started a few weeks after the Clinton part of the block. Construction of the consolidated property was apparently completed within a year.
A drugstore remained in Clinton's corner store for many years. Crown Drugs occupied the space for decades beginning in the 1920s. At that time, two stores occupied the old Casper/Shimfessell portion of the building: Helzberg's was in the west shop space and Herm's in the east. Professional offices occupied the second-floor rooms.