Commerce & Finance In Old Bowling Green

Commerce and Finance In Old Bowling Green. . , Southwest Block , Southwest of the intersection of S. Main St. and W. Wooster St. stand three commercial buildings that are placed in the National Register of Historic Places (1980) as contributing to the Main Street Historic District. They are, from north to south and oldest to newest, the Union Block (1877), the Lehmann Building (1896-97), and the Commercial Bank and Savings Company (1926). Next door to the bank, the Royce Building (1889) completes this row of Italianate and Classical Revival structures., Union Block, 1877 , The two-story brick Union Block at 108-112 S. Main St. was built in 1877 by Christoph Lehmann, Dr. Andrew J. Manville, and J. D. Bolles. It is in the Italianate style, with typical delicate bracketed cornices and seven angled arched windows set into larger round brick arches on the second story. It housed the Bolles and Manville drug company until 1896. In this 1877 photo, the drugstore (later Kigers) is on the right, and a hardware and implement store is on the left. Law and insurance offices are at the top of the central stairway., Lehmann Building, 1896-97 , Just south of the Union Block at 116 S. Main St. is the Lehmann Building, built in 1896-97 by Christoph Lehmann in a Classical Revival style, probably influenced by the many classical buildings at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The pair of cattle heads on each side of the central arch on the second story reflect the imaginative energy of the 1890s. Lehmann (who also invested in the Union Block) was born in Germany and emigrated in 1865. After traveling with a wandering Italian harpist, he settled in Bowling Green in 1871 and established a successful butcher shop, a trade he had learned in Tiffin, Ohio. , The picture above shows the Lehmann Building (left) and the Union Block (center) as they appeared in 1976. Kiger's Drug Store, on the right side of the Union Block, was a fixture in Bowling Green for many decades., The Commercial Bank and Savings Company, 1926 , The Commercial Bank and Savings Company (pictured left) at 130 S. Main St. is a Classical Revivial structure expressing the steadfastness of a Greek temple. The original name of the bank is carved in Indiana limestone just below the geometric frieze on the upper floor, which is supported by four round Doric columns. The iron ornamentation in the entranceway between the two central pillars once held a clock. The Commercial Bank failed before the stock market crash in October 1929 and was replaced in 1931 by the Bank of Wood County, whose name is chiseled into stone window boxes on the ground floor (pictured right). Later it became the Huntington Bank., A. J. Manville, M. D. (1834-1902) was born in Plain Township in pioneer days and became a successful farmer. His mother encouraged him to study medicine with Dr. G. J. Rogers, who was also his partner in a Bowling Green drug store. He studied at the medical college in Ann Arbor, MI, and earned his M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York. His public service included helping make Bowling Green the county seat and bringing the Wood County Fair to Bowling Green from Perrysburg. The house he had built at 416 W. Wooster St., located in the Boom Town Historic District, later became Community Hospital., A. E. Royce (1844-1914) was a leading businessman in Bowling Green. He was successful in agriculture and the grocery business and became a property owner and banker as president of the firm Royce, Smith and Coon and later president of the Commercial Banking Company. He owned the second oil well drilled in Wood County., The Royce Building, which can be seen in its original design below (Courtesy Wood County Tribune December 12, 1989) at 136 S. Main St. was built in 1889 by Albert Royce, president of the Commercial Banking Company. Its Italianate style features a decorative parapet with Royce's name and the year of construction. The second-story windows are adorned with headers and stone sills, under a unifying bracketed cornice and fanciful decorative trim. As seen in this 1889 architectural drawing, there was once a north wing that housed the Commercial Bank, of which Royce was president. This side of the Royce Building was demolished to make way for the Commercial Bank and Savings building (Neoclassical style) in 1926, eliminating the original symmetry of the older building.