The Italianate Style of architecture was prominent in Oregon between around 1860 to the 1890s. It is characterized by a very low pitch hipped roof, projecting eaves with brackets, tall windows, bay windows, and ornamentation – often pressed tin – that simulates stone.
This two-part block building, is characterized by the visual division of the front façade into upper and lower zones. The lower zone at the first story indicates public use – retail stores, drug stores, etc. – having a recessed entrance doors capped with a transom and large plate glass windows with masonry bulkhead below with multilight transoms above for light and ventilation.
The upper zone (story), reflects more private use such as apartments and offices. The upper story windows are commonly tall and narrow, double hung sashes grouped together or spaced evenly apart, usually with decorative headers in the Italianate style.
Adam K. Wilson was a very prominent business man, who had two large farms in Polk County as well as a very successful drug store business in the building named for him. After his death, building remained in his estate until purchased in 1997 by Jackie and David Lawson.
The Wilson Building sits on the northwest corner of Main and Court Streets and was built on the site shortly after a major fire in July 1889 which destroyed most of the wood buildings on the block between Court and Mill Streets. Rather than wood, as was the fashion with most of the new buildings on the block, the new building was constructed of durable materials – stone, brick and with locally manufactured cast iron columns in this case.
Conrad Stafrin started working for Wilson in the drug store. Wilson died in 1902 and Stafrin purchased the business (not the building) in 1904. Dr. W. S. Carey was Stafrin’s silent partner, and Stafrin bought him out in 1906. As noted by the 1902 Sanborn map, building 13 (GFG) is a grocery store and feed goods and office on second floor, building 14 has a cigars and a photo gallery with offices on second floor, building 15, features a drugstore on street level and office space on the second floor. The offices belonged to Dr. Carey, Dr. Mark Hayter, a dentist, and Glen Holman, a lawyer. Tom Cherrington, photographer, had the gallery in this building.
The Sanborn maps, 1913 and 1939, show the drug store, run by Conrad Stafrin, a book store, run by Carey Hayter, (later to be Greenwood’s Stationers), and a clothing store.
The Stafrin Drug Store, a charming old-fashioned store of its type, was at its corner location until 1968. Its founder, Conrad Stafrin, served as the Adjutant General of the Oregon National Guard from June 9, 1919, to April 15, 1920.
KEY REFERENCES
- Itemizer-Observer, June 3, 1971
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
- Polk County Itemizer., August 29, 1902,
- National Historic Register of Historic Places on July 31, 1998