November Historic Building of the Month: 104 S. Main

The Fearnside Block, 104 South Main Street (Bankey & Fearnside, English Food Store, Isaly's, The Parrot and the Peacock, Trade Winds, Soft Rock Café, Easystreet Café.)

The Bowling Green Historic Preservation Commission has chosen 104 South Main Street as its Historic Building of the Month for November. Over the decades it has housed a clothing store, two groceries, a pool hall, a dairy store, and a series of restaurants, with club lodges, professional offices, or a pub on the second floor. It is currently home to the popular Easystreet restaurant and Grumpy Dave's Pub upstairs.

The two-story building was erected around 1888 in the Italianate style typical of the time, as seen in the swan's neck scroll pediment atop the bracketed cornice that crowns the façade, as well as the decorative brick and stonework above the second-floor windows. The current street-level storefront, though not original, harmonizes with the historical style, while the green awning above has a more recent feel.

Sanborn insurance maps help tell the tale of 104 South Main's first decades. The 1888 map shows a clothing and millinery store on the first floor (name unknown) and a lodge on the second. At least three fraternal organizations occupied this lodge from the 1880s to the 1910s: the Patriotic Order of Sons of America, the Ben-Hur Tribe, and the Union Grange. On the 1893 Sanborn map, the first floor is vacant, but the lodge is still occupied.

The 1900 map shows nothing on the second floor and a grocery on the first. This was Bankey & Fearnside's, in business from 1899 to 1904, when George W. Fearnside (1867-1936) left it to become county treasurer. He maintained ownership of the building, which gave it its popular name, the "Fearnside block." In 1908 it was vacant again, and in 1915 it was a pool hall. The last map, from 1925, notes "S" for "store." This was the English Bros. grocery.

In 1918, Virgil (1890-1962) and Roscoe (1892-1973) English moved their store "English Bros. & Co." from 165 South Main Street to 104 South Main Street. In 1930, Virgil bought his brother's interest in the store, making it "The English Food Market." "Virg" English served on City Council and was active in the Bowling Green Country Club and Kiwanis Club.

In 1939, a Cleveland firm purchased the Fearnside block, and the English Food Market moved to 139-141 West Wooster Street (now Art-a-Site and A Cut Above), where it stayed until it closed in 1951.

In May 1939, the Isaly Dairy Company leased the ground floor. An ad in the Sentinel Tribune in June 1939 announces the opening of Isaly's Dairy Store, part of a chain of dairies and restaurants that started in Mansfield, Ohio. Isaly's invented the Klondike bar and was known for its chipped chopped ham and its "skyscraper cones," with ice cream as high as the cone was tall. The 1939 ad shows a skyscraper cone and promises "FREE Ice Cream Cones ON OPENING DAY."

Isaly's expanded from the late 1910s to the 1940s. At its peak in 1947, the chain had nearly 400 stores, mainly in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Isaly family sold the company in the early '70s. The store on Main Street stayed in business from 1970 to 1979 as the "Falcon Dairy Store (formerly Isaly's)." For over forty years, Isaly's was the city's go-to place for ice cream and lunch.

Meanwhile, on the second floor, a series of professionals had offices or practices. The 1914 City Directory lists "D. R. Jones, attorney at law." Jones kept his office "opposite the Hotel Millikin" from 1903 until 1924. Datus R. Jones (1847-1928) was president of the Bowling Green Humane Society and active in the local Democratic Party.

Over the decades, several prominent doctors also practiced at 104 South Main Street. Returning from serving in World War I in 1919, Frank V. Boyle (1883-1968), later chief of staff at Wood County Hospital, "fitted up a pleasant office in the Fearnside block over English Bros.' grocery."

Dr. James W. Rae (1880-1965), a pioneering physical therapist, also had his office there. In 1931, Dr. Raymond N. Whitehead (1905-1993) took over Dr. Rae's practice. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he helped plan Wood County Hospital and later served as its chief of staff. Dr. E. H. Mercer (1875-1952), who practiced in Bowling Green from 1915 to 1943, had an office in the Fearnside block the 1920s.

A later occupant, from 1947 to 1954, was the C. L. Heiby Dental Lab. In 1975 the architectural firm Frederick Arn and Associates bought the building and remodeled the upstairs into one large room and added a partial third floor as Arn's office.

In 1979, Larry LaPointe and Gene Poor purchased the Falcon Dairy Store and started a restaurant, The Parrot and the Peacock. Poor installed the massive bar, lavish woodwork, stained glass, and Tiffany lamps that still distinguish the dining room. In 1981, the upstairs became a cocktail lounge, Milton's on Main.

In 1984, Marvin Reed, Michael Titmuss, and Boots Ferguson assumed ownership of the restaurant, renaming it Trade Winds. By 1987, Trade Winds was out of business, and Vic and Debbie Pirooz purchased the restaurant, calling it Soft Rock Café, with dining downstairs and a lounge upstairs.

In 1990, Pirooz tried to franchise the Soft Rock Café, but Hard Rock Café made him drop the name. He held a contest and chose Wendy Giroux's "Easystreet Café" from over 2,500 entries. Eventually, the photos of rock stars that graced every booth were auctioned off and replaced with black-and-white historical photos of Bowling Green, appropriate for this historic site.

The lounge became Upstairs at Easystreet, but in 2006 manager Dave Harper renamed it Grumpy Dave's Pub, reintroduced live music, and added karaoke, billiards, video games, and an open mic night.

In 2023, after 37 years, Vic Pirooz sold the business to the co-owners of Call of the Canyon Café, Ardy Gonyer and Tim Emmerich, who grew up with the restaurant. Gonyer proposed to his wife there, and Emmerich was on the Easystreet Pee Wee League team. The two have mostly maintained the atmosphere and offerings of this BG institution and retained much of the staff as well. After all, it's a piece of local history.

(Written by Geoff Howes of the Bowling Green Historic Preservation Commission. Thank you to Ardy Gonyer, the Sentinel-Tribune, the BG Independent News, and the Wood County District Public Library.)

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