Purchase Price - $23,000
4,356 sqft
For sale by owner — call (816) 244-7501
There are places in St. Joseph where it’s like stepping back in time; where you can stand on the sidewalk and so easily imagine what it was like in the beginning. The two little storefronts at 1906 and 1910 Frederick are those kinds of magical places. Gazing at these two places you are transported back to the final decades of the 19th century when the McInich brothers built these to house their dry goods store and their bank.
In the 1880s Amos, David, and George McIninch built these buildings and moved their store into the premises. They based their reputation on selling “everything” and if you read their rather wonderful advertisements in the newspapers it seems to have been true. They sold everything from clothing to harnesses to groceries. A few years later they founded the Farmers and Traders Bank which occupied 1906 until the early 1940s.
As charming as these buildings are, they were built to be income generating premises; the point was to have businesses in them. Most often there were multiple enterprises in each of them, the upper floors being occupied by organizations such as the Knights of Columbus and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
After the bank was purchased and closed its doors at 1906 the space housed a wide diversity of businesses. In the late 1940s it was home to Bryan Hatchery, where they sold poultry. Later it was more medically oriented with an arthritis clinic, a chiropractor, and an oxygen company. Next door in 1910/12 the emphasis was generally hardware and auto-related businesses. The focus on the automobile is fitting; the second generation of the McIninch family were big boosters of car-culture and were instrumental in getting the Jefferson Highway built.
These charming storefronts on Frederick Avenue have been home to many successful businesses in their nearly 150 year history. With a bit of TLC they could support commercial ventures for many decades to come.
For sale by owner — call (816) 244-7501 or email james.haake@gmail.com
