Peters Saloon

Peters Saloon. . Henry Peters did something unusual for a saloonkeeper. He bought the property on which his rented saloon stood and built his own saloon at this location in 1910. A native of Germany, Peters became a saloonist in the 1890s and along with many fellow saloonkeepers converted his business to a soft drink emporium in 1920 when Prohibition went into effect. Like other saloonkeepers he sponsored his own baseball team, the Peters. After his death in 1925, the building housed Linder's Dry Goods Store., In 1930, the General Radio and Supply Company moved into the building. Beginning as a radio and appliance store, the company evolved. After World War II, it billed itself as the "House … of Modern Living" and promoted postwar consumerism with new products, such as air conditioners and power lawn mowers. Soon after beginning to sell televisions in 1949, the company deemphasized radios and adopted the name of General Supply Company in the late 1950s. The company continued to sell appliances until 1975. Furniture stores and businesses associated with the Yale Professional Law Enforcement Institute followed into the building., William L. Enyart and his wife, Judge Annette Eckert, purchased the property in 1993. They restored it according to the specifications of the Illinois Main Street Program. Bethany Place, an AIDS service orginization, and Curves for Women, a health club, were subsequent businesses here. Peace by Piece, a woman's apparel shop, opened at this location in 2009.