131 No. 9th Street

Address: 131 North 9th Street

Legal Description: S 28’ of the N 72’ of Lots 81 and 82

Building: Kessler & Bumgarner

Note:  The Sanborn Map company put out maps for the fire insurance industry and each entrance to a building received an identifying number which was used on these buildings until the postal service assigned street addresses in 1927.  This building accommodated two businesses in the early days.  Locations 504 and 505 are here.

1872 Vacant lot

1888 Mark Alexander was cutting meat in a shop near the post office.

1889 Mark Alexander started west in a wagon to look up a location for a meat market.  If he failed to find a location, his plan was to return to Illinois.  But he returned and opened Webb and Alexander on Court street.

1890 In February, D. F. (Sog) Kessler and his brother-in-law, J. J. Bumgarner made plans to open a meat market.  They purchased the lot immediately north of the Citizen’s bank block and erected a two story brick building.  The Architect was Mr. E. A. Webster of this city.  

1890 In June, a heavy storm damaged the west brick wall of the Kessler & Bumgarner building.   They later sold it to E. M. & Addie Billings, and it was sometimes called the Billings Block.

1890 Kessler & Bumgarner supplied fresh and salt meats, fish and fowl to their customers.  It is unclear where Kessler & Bumgarner were conducting their business as it appears that their building was still under construction in July.  

1890 In August, Shumway moved his stock of harness to the Kessler Block.

1890 In August, W. H. Bailor purchased the meat market from Kessler & Bumgarner and was located in the Kessler Block north of the post office.

1890 S. J. Russell purchased the butcher shop on Center Street from Mr. Bailor. 

1891 In April William Merrill purchased the C. C. Shumway harness shop.

1891 In June, G. H. Palmer had his tailoring business in offices in the Kessler Block. 

1891 In June, Billings and Billings had their law offices upstairs

1891 In July, Curt Smith purchased the Geneva Meat Market from Russell and continued the business at the old stand north of the post office.  They purchased Chas. Ashton’s entire product of 10,000  lbs. of ham, shoulders, bacon, and leaf lard.

1891 Mrs. W. A. (Wilfreada Ann) Wills operated a restaurant here. 

1892 In January, Maclen & Turney of Fullerton bought the Geneva Meat Market from C. A. Smith.

1892 In April, E. M. Billings prepared his storeroom north of the post office for the racket store.

1892 The Democrat office was moved into the Billings building north of the post office and occupied the south half of the building. 

1892 The north half of the building was occupied by Mrs. Fillebrown’s millinery shop.

1892 In October, the Sanborn maps showed a vacant building.

1893 In March, Mrs. Whittle sold out her racket store.  An exclusive boot and shoe stock was put in the room.

1893 In March, J. S. Burleigh had a shoe store--The New Shoe Store--in the north ½ of the building..

1893 So. Platte Land Co. was here.

1893 The brick smoke room erected in the rear of the old Curt Smith meat market was torn down.

1894 J. L. Houchin sold insurance from here.

1894 In August, J. M. Burke prepared the room just north of the post office for a hardware store (south ½ of the building with Burleigh shoes.) Mr. Burke had three car loads of hardware on the tracks to stock his new store.  The basement was also used.

1895 In June, the stock of hardware owned by Mrs. Minnie Burke, wife of J. M. was transferred to J. O. Baker of Phillips, Nebraska.  Mr. Baker (a banker) replevined the Burke hardware stock and opened the doors for business.   He did not work in the store, but came down periodically to oversee his interests.

1896 Frank Hranac moved his harness shop into the room vacated by Burleigh’s shoe store.

1897 Extracted from Nebraska Signal, June 18, 1897 -- “Frank Hranac is taking violin lessons and has got far enough along to stand in the door of his shop and tune his instrument.”

1898 In January, D. Geiselman purchased the J. O. Baker hardware stock.  The hardware store remained in the same location one door north of the post office and was under the management of Charley Summers. Mr. Geiselman continued with his harness shop at the old location at 984 G Street. He eventually moved the harness stock here until the building was sold to the Edgecombes.

1898 In May, Hranac Bros. moved their harness shop to 942 G. 

1898 D. Geiselman secured the services of Antone Barnas, the Bohemian harness maker from Milligan.

1898 Geiselman moved his hardware and harness stock to 984 Court street.

1898 In April, Hattie & Frank Edgecombe purchased this building from Citizens Bank.  Mr. Edgecombe purchased the Nebraska Signal, which had been printed in Fairmont, and the Republican in 1894 and later the Democrat.  The Nebraska Signal moved from north of the alley at 122 No. 9th St. to this location.  From here on, 504 and 505 were one location.

1906 In March, the Fairmont Dispatch was consolidated with the Signal.

1909 In June, the Exeter Enterprise was consolidated with the Signal.

1910 In Feb., the Grafton Sun was consolidated with the Signal.

1911 In April, the Geneva Gazette was consolidated with the Signal.

1913 Tyler Edgecombe, son of Frank and Hattie, joined the business.

1913 In November, the Ohiowa Ohiowan was consolidated with the Signal.

1914 In October, the Strang Enterprise was consolidated with the Signal.

1920 In November, the Milligan Times was consolidated with the Signal.

1930 The Ohiowa Advertiser was consolidated with The Signal.

1947 John Edgecombe, son of Tyler and grandson of Frank, joined The Signal Staff.

1949 A new front was put on the building.

1957 The Fillmore Chronicle of Fairmont was consolidated with the Nebraska Signal of Geneva.

1970 John Edgecombe, Jr. became the fourth generation of the family to join the paper.

2018 John Edgecombe retired and his sons, Jim and Mike, became the publishers of the paper.  Greg Scellin was the editor.

This was ongoing as of the last posting.