Three African-American Entrepreneurs

Historic South Dade Posted on by

by Jeff Blakley

The subject of African-American history in general is a difficult subject to tackle, particularly for White historians. For historians working in a Southern city, it is even more difficult. Nonetheless, in this post, I am going to outline a few details about three enterprising African-American business people in early Homestead.

In 1903, John S. Frederick, a civil engineer who worked for the Flagler interests in Miami, surveyed the route of the railroad to Homestead from Miami and platted the Town of Homestead in 1904.

Homestead 1904

Town of Homestead as platted in 1904

On the plat above, the intersection of the two diagonal lines is that of Krome and Mowry. Railroad Avenue is now Flagler.

The land reserved for the Town on the west side of Krome Avenue was in section 13 of township 57 south, range 38 east. It comprised the east half of the northeast quarter, the east half of the southeast quarter and the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter. All of the subdivisions in this essay, with the exception of the Pinehurst Addition, which was originally part of the Leonard Mowry homestead, were on land owned by the F.E.C. David Torcise’s Google Earth map of homesteads, available by clicking on the link at the lower right of this page, provides more detail.

At this distance, it is very difficult to find the original deeds between the F.E.C. and purchasers of its land but in September of 1911, Charles M. Nelson platted Nelson’s Addition to Homestead and that was followed by the Pinehurst Addition and W. D. Horne’s Addition in 1912, McClain’s and Nobles’ Additions in 1913, Ewing’s, Tatum’s Colored Town and Logan’s Additions in 1914 and finally the Fread Additions, starting in 1918.

Southwest Homestead

Map Courtesy of David Torcise

The owners of the land which was subdivided to create these subdivisions were an interesting group of men. Charles M. Nelson was a pineapple grower in Dania and a real estate speculator in Homestead. Robert W. Ralston, a prominent real estate speculator from Miami, created the Pinehurst Addition on 40 acres he purchased from Leonard Mowry. Mowry filed his claim for 120 acres on December 28, 1908 and patented it on September 21, 1911. Ralston filed his plat of Pinehurst on December 3, 1912. W. D. Horne is well-known in Homestead history but his role as a real estate salesman is not much commented on. Little is known about William Nobles, but he was here as early as 1910 and may have come from Walton County, Florida. He purchased the Homestead Grocery from Edward A. Sistrunk and subsequently sold it to Charles T. Fuchs. Hugh H. Ewing, a former insurance agent, was part of a group of men who came from Topeka, Kansas and homesteaded in the Longview area west of what was then Detroit and is now Florida City. J. H. Tatum, who platted Tatum’s Colored Town Addition, was a distant relative of Russell F. Tatum, the Town of Homestead’s first mayor. J. H. and his brothers, Smiley, J.R. and B.B., were the Tatum Brothers Real Estate & Investment Company. All of these men were in the business of making money.

Leonidas Lee Fread, the man who platted the three Fread Additions to Homestead, was an exception to the others. He came here in the fall of 1911 from Winter Haven, Florida, where he was a farmer, purchased 10 acres and set out a fruit grove. Lee was born in Franklin County, Indiana in 1851. As the African-American community grew and moved west, he subdivided his property and built houses to sell or rent to them.

Early in Homestead history, the African-American workers on the railroad lived in shacks on the east side of the railroad tracks. Soon enough, public sentiment forced the F.E.C. to move their shanties to the west side of the track and by 1911, with Nelson’s Addition, they were moved even further south and west.

There is a myth, which may have originated with Jean Taylor, that states that Mark Lawrence McClain, a Bahamian worker on the F.E.C. Railroad, homesteaded 160 acres in southwest Homestead and created McClain’s Addition in 1927. This is not true – the plat was recorded on March 3, 1913. The names given on the plat are L. McClain and Rebecca, his wife. McClain, who was born in North Carolina in either 1846 or 1831, depending on which census you view, was a mulatto whose father was from Northern Ireland and whose mother was born in North Carolina. As I stated at the beginning of this article, researching African-American history is difficult at best. Among the few records (other than the plat of McClain’s Addition) I was able to find that mention McClain are the 1920 and 1930 censuses of Homestead. In the 1920 census, Elmer McClain, 64 and his wife Rebecca may have lived in the Florida City area. In the 1930 census, however, Lawrence was shown as widowed, 99 years old and living on Eckman (now Roberts) Road north of Avocado. He also appears on the delinquent tax lists of 1917, 1918 and 1920, published in the Homestead Enterprise. Delinquent tax lists were published in the year after the tax was due, giving the owners public notice that their property would be sold at public auction to satisfy the tax due. On the 1917 list, McClain owed taxes on 33 out of the 48 lots in his subdivision. On the 1918 list, he owed taxes on 31 while on the 1920 list, he only owed taxes on 7. He clearly was doing better every year.

I’m not aware of any historian who has written anything about Roman W. Logan and his wife, Ida. Jean Taylor, in an article in the December, 1977 issue of Update, published by the Historical Association of South Florida, noted that “a colored baker named Logan was hired by Charles T. Fuchs.1 It is not known who captioned the photograph below, but Logan is pictured on the right with a pan of bread loaves in his arms. This photograph is featured on page 22 of the book, Papa Fuchs’ Family, 1881 – 1981, so it is likely that someone in the Fuchs family provided the names of the people in the photograph.

Fuchs Bakery 1913

In 1914, Roman and Ida platted Logan’s Addition to Homestead, which was a replat of lots 10 – 15 of Block 8 of the Pinehurst Addition. Logan’s Addition created 21 lots out of the 6 lots that were part of Block 8.

Roman was born on March 18, 1874 in Nassau County, Florida. His father Benjamin was born in South Carolina in 1847 and was very likely a slave. Roman first married Maggie Jones in Nassau County, Florida in 1896 and then married Ida Drayton in Miami in 1906. Ida had at least two children by her first marriage: Samuel and Alexander. On April 23, 1910, the date of the Miami census, Roman and Ida lived on 3rd St. in Miami and he was a baker. Then, on April 29, 1910, he was enumerated on Long Key, where he was a “servant” in what may have been a boarding house run by John Ulric Free. He registered for the draft in September of 1918 in Homestead and in the 1920 census, he and his wife’s occupations are given as “grocery merchants.”

On the 1917 delinquent tax list, Roman Logan is listed as owing taxes on 2 lots in the W. D. Horne Addition and 3 in the McClain Addition. His wife, Ida, is shown as owing taxes on all of the lots in Logan’s Addition. On the 1918 list, he is shown as owing taxes on four lots in W. D. Horne’s Addition and one in McClain’s Addition. No lots in Logan’s Addition appeared on the list. On the 1920 list, Roman Logan only owes taxes on one lot in McClain’s Addition. He and Ida were slowly improving their lot.

Jean Taylor, in her book The Villages of South Dade, wrote that Moses Griffin, our third African-American entrepreneur, was born in 1888 in Brooks County, Georgia, the son of a wealthy white plantation owner and an African-American mother. He came to Homestead in 1912, invested in real estate and operated a taxi service for African-Americans between Homestead and Miami. On the 1917 delinquent tax list, published in the Homestead Enterprise, he owed taxes on 4 lots in Ewing’s Addition. He does not appear on either the 1918 or 192o delinquency lists so either he paid his taxes on time or he had disposed of his holdings.

Despite the fact that Roman Logan was enumerated as a “mulatto” in the 1910 census of Long Key, he was dark-complected. However, Lawrence McClain was a mulatto because his father was from Northern Ireland and Mose Griffin was a mulatto because his father was White. It is interesting that two African-Americans of light complexion in early Homestead were also successful businessmen. Frenzied land speculation was the order of the day in early Homestead and it wasn’t only Whites who engaged in the practice. A select few African-Americans were able to play that game also.

There are a lot of stories to be told about early Homestead but land speculation has not been the subject of much, if any, research. I hope, by writing this short essay, to encourage another historian to take a more in-depth look at race in early Homestead, surely the “third rail” of history in this area.
_____________________________________________________________________

Rambles

Historic South Dade Posted on by

A Miamian Visits Homestead in 1923

Article transcribed by Jeff Blakley

This article came from the July 31, 1923 issue of the Miami Herald and I thought it was a delightful piece that captured a sense of what Homestead was like in that era. The Seminole Cafe, adjacent to the Homestead hotel, was owned by Gussie Joiner (divorced from Jim English) and the Jarrett Coffee company was owned by Harvey Jarrett, husband of Gertrude Jarrett, a prominent member of the Miami Womans Club. The Co-Operative Mercantile Company was a grocery store. They offered “Everything in High Class Groceries” according to an advertisement that appeared in the Miami Herald on December 21, 1922. The J. U. Free building was around the corner from the Homestead hotel, on Flagler. The Horne building had just recently been completed. King’s Undertaking was at 209 N. Krome.

Who says folks in Homestead didn’t know how to have fun? The article is a column written by Edgar Hay, entitled Rambles.

Rambles

Homestead Impressions.

One hour and twenty minutes from Miami. Twenty-eight miles. The familiar yellow station. Diagonally across is the older business highway, Ingraham Highway, with the hotels and restaurants.

That’s me — bed and board — The Homestead hotel. Lady tells me to go up and take number 12. She is not feeling well and she can’t climb the stairs very well. Aw right, lady. I tip myself two-bits for bell-hop service.

Now to eat. The Seminole Cafe — the Square Meal Place. This must be the place I’ve heard about. All you can eat for a dollar. Phew! Wot a lotta food on the table. Fried chicken and two kinds of meat — three different kinds of beans — spinach (ah, Comment Column!) — potatoes, rice, cold slaw, avocado salad, corn muffins, pickles, okra — yep, it’s a square meal all right; cubic, in fact. If you ate everything, the corners would hurt. I see Jarrett Coffee company’s truck parked. It has come all the way from Miami with this hot weather confession on its side: “We Roast Daily.”

Stroll across the railroad. To the new business stem of Homestead — Krome avenue. Bank of Homestead. And the Horne building. And Burton’s 21,983 Article Sale — every article has a separate number — wonder if a pair of sox would have two numbers?

Autos parked slantwise at the curbs. New buildings elbowing the old ones with haughty snobbishness. There’s the Co-operative Mds. Co. — Wot does Mds. stand for? “Merchandise.” Ha — that’s how Editor Robards, of the Havana News, useta refer to The Galley conductor, MSD. Homestead Mercantile company — hardware, furnishings — wonder wot’s the abbreviation for “mercantile.” Citizens Bank building — wide and one story high. A drug store window sign: stop scratching — Use Unguentine soap. Why doesn’t that li’l white dog read that? The movie theater — with imposing arched entrance — one of the newer buildings — quite spiffy. Across the street is city hall building — fire station downstairs — city rooms on second floor — mayor of Homestead is Mr. S. E. Livingston.

Latest census of Dade county credits Homestead with a population of 1850. A town of small homes and comfortable grounds around ’em. New roads being built. New store buildings going up — J. U. Free building, Caves and Walker building, where Harris Motor company is gonna hang out their Ford shingle.

NEW high school. Opened last April. Catty-cornered from it is the grammar school — one of the most individual school buildings the kollum has noticed. Cluster of low red brick buildings with red-tile roofs. Auditorium in center. Radiating from the corners are the class-room buildings. All sides open to light and air. Something exotic, yet smacking of Florida — this school. Tennis court and baseball diamond adjoin the school ground. Children are brought by bus from outlying settlements: Florida City, Redlands and Silver Palm. 450 to 500 pupils on the rolls.

Clouds and rain. Home to the hostelry. A cigarette on the wooden veranda. The enjoyment of watching rain splash in the street. Hungry. Another cubic meal. Sunset. Night. Movies. After movies — a stroll along Krome avenue. Hesitate on the corner. Music — jazz music. I follow it down a side street. A shower of yellow falls through the darkness. Babble of voices from an upstairs balcony. Women’s laughter. Dark silent autos parked on both sides of the street. A Ford full of shirtsleeved young fellas.

“Is this a public dance goin’ on upstairs?”

“Yep — but it’ll cost ya a dollar. Luna Park orchestra from Miami is playin’ up there t’night.”

Clutching a dollar, I ascend the stairs. As I do, I notice a sign advertising the business located beneath the dance hall. It is an undertaker’s establishment!

Humm — pleasant thought: the dance of death. Hooray, let’s go. For my dollar, the young lady in filmy blue dress pins a pale lavender bow in my necktie. A turmoil of perspiring faces. All strangers to me. All the fellas have taken off their coats. Quite sensible. Think I’ll do the same. Well, I’ll wait awhile until I see if I get a dance. Girls and fellas sit on tables on the balcony — their feet on the benches. Gaiety and giddy bantering. Many ages represented. Most of the faces are smiling.

The music begins again. The inside room becomes a swirl of faces and hips and backs. A languorous girl in an Egyptian design dress. She would rather dance than eat, I’ll bet.

A THOUGHT is forming gradually in my mind: That you can read a person’s character in the manner of his dancing. Sometime I’ll try to work it out. At least, you can sense personalities in folks’ dancing.

The room becometh hot and oppressive. I squirm through a clutter of male wall-flowers and regain the porch. Not much air stirring.

A girl is smiling through in conversation with a middle-aged fella. As she glances at me, her face becomes suddenly sober. Mebbe my face scared her. Doggone it, I’m still thinking of that undertaker sign — that’s why. Don’t think I’ll dance after all. Get a nice tall limeade and then go to bed, with a few chapters of Ben Hecht to keep me awake.

________________

Homestead is the last filling station for the F. E. C. before it steps off to the south and across the keys to Key West. There are many little stops between Homestead and the Island City. Two trains of tank cars carry water to the little stops every day. Homestead is the filling station.

One of the most appreciated improvements in the town is the new swimming pool, which F. L. Webster has installed. There is a constant flow of spring water through the pool. Water first passes through pipes in the water plant (across the road) which removes the chill. There is a row of bath houses, for which a small fee is charged. The pool has become the popular rendezvous these warm afternoons, for Homestead is not within easy access of any beach.

EDGAR HAY

______________________

The Campbell Furniture Building

Historic South Dade Posted on by

by Jeff Blakley

The building which once stood on the southwest corner of Krome and N.W. 1st Street was built in 1921 by J. W. Conner for Archie J. Campbell, one of Thomas Alexander Campbell’s sons, for whom Campbell Drive is named. It is pictured in the photograph at the top of this page, next to the Citizens Bank Building.

From the Homestead Enterprise, August 18, 1921, page 1:

Campbell Furniture Co. to Have New Home

Lack of room in their present quarters and the ever-present danger of fire, along with their confidence in our town, were the primary causes for the erection of the new Campbell Furniture Co. building. The proprietor, A. J. Campbell, has for several years owned the lot occupied by the Citizen’s Bank, and on this he intended to build. When the bank was built, he “swapped” for his present location, and now is realizing his ambitions to build a home for the Campbell Furniture Co. which he could take pride in.

The building which covers a space of 50 x 80 feet is being built of tile, and two stories in height. Mr. Campbell intended at first to only build one story, but when the opportunity came he decided on two. The second floor will be occupied by the offices of Dr. J. E. Shields and Dr. J. A. Smith, each having three rooms. The balance of the second floor will not be completed for the present, but used as store space.

The corner store, 25 x 80 feet will be taken by the Seminole Pharmacy. Complete sanitary fixtures are being installed for the soda fountain, and the location, just opposite the Citizens Bank, will be a vast improvement over their present stand.

The contract on the Campbell building is held by J. W. Conner, who has a number of buildings locally to his credit.

A floor plan of the building will be found on page four.

Campbell Furniture Building

The building was constructed of hollow clay tile, the same material that the J. D. Redd building (1922), soon to be razed by the City of Homestead, was built of.

J D Redd 1922

The J. D. Redd building is in the middle – the pink building – between Stick & Stein and the former Bank of Homestead building

Archie Campbell’s furniture business was on the ground floor on the south side of the building and the Seminole Pharmacy was on the north side. The Campbell Furniture Co. was purchased by the Gulf State Furniture Co., owned by M. C. Smith of Miami, in April of 1923. The store, the second one in a chain which would eventually number nine stores, held its grand opening on May 25, 1923. On June 20, 1927, the Gulf State Furniture Co. went into involuntary bankruptcy and was liquidated. Its assets were distributed to other furniture stores in Miami and the building in Homestead was shuttered. The Seminole Pharmacy later became Doc Brown’s drug store.

The Campbell Brothers building adjoined the Homestead Pharmacy building to the south. The Seminole Theater building (also built in 1921) was built for James W. English by Henry Brooker, Sr., the owner of the Homestead Mercantile Co. It was between the Homestead Pharmacy and the Homestead Mercantile Co.

Homestead Pharmacy

Homestead Mercantile (left) and Homestead Pharmacy (right)

The Campbell Brothers Furniture building was torn down and the site (plus half the right-of-way of Miller Street, which was later re-designated as N.W. 1st St.) became the south half of Losner Park. The north half of Losner Park is the other half of the right of way of Miller Street and where the Citizens Bank building once stood.

A photograph of the Campbell Bros. Furniture store in later years, when it was the location of Brown’s Drug Store. The photograph was taken by Ed Oberlies of the South Dade News Leader:

Screen Shot 2017 05 04 at 11 36 57 PM

History of the Homestead Town Hall

Historic South Dade Posted on by

by Jeff Blakley

The Town of Homestead was incorporated on January 27, 1913 but its officials had no municipal building in which to meet. They met at two different buildings before the Town Hall was built in 1917: Tatum’s Real Estate office on Railroad Avenue (Russell F. Tatum was Homestead’s first mayor) or in Sistrunk Hall, which was a wooden building located just west of the Bank of Homestead building. Sistrunk Hall was built in May of 1912, shortly after construction began on the Bank of Homestead building in March of that same year. It was built by Edward A. Sistrunk, who may have been from White Springs, Florida. He was in Miami as early as 1907, when he married Eva Lenora Carter. It is unknown when he came to Homestead, but his wife was a member of the Homestead Sewing Circle (the predecessor to the Homestead Women’s Club) in 1912 and he was the Chief of Police of Homestead in 1916. In 1912, according to a manuscript found at the Florida State Archives by Dr. Greg Bush of the University of Miami, Mr. Sistrunk owned the Homestead Grocery (now the home of Ages Ago Antiques) and sold it to W. J. Nobles who, in turn, sold it to Charles T. Fuchs, Sr., the founder of Fuchs Bakery. His son, Charles T. Fuchs, Jr. moved the business to Railroad Avenue (now Flagler) and then bought a franchise from Holsum Bakery and moved the business to South Miami. Sistrunk Hall was where various fraternal orders and community groups met and it also had a movie theater which pre-dated the Seminole Theater. Sistrunk Hall, like so many other wooden buildings of that era, burned down in the early morning hours of August 31, 1916.

According to an article that appeared in the February 8, 1917 issue of The Homestead Enterprise and the minutes of the meetings of the Council of the Town of Homestead, William J. Krome, representing the owners of the Commerce Addition, proposed a location for the new Town Hall on Krome Avenue north of Mowry. The Commerce Addition had been surveyed by Richard L. Bow, the son of Lily Lawrence Bow and platted by William J. Krome on September 30, 1914. George W. Hall, part of a group of men including William H. Sykes, William Nobles, Fred Loomis, Tom Evans, Frank J. Powers, A.T. Jackson, David Sullivan, William A. King, William O. Bryant (later the first police chief of the City of Homestead) and Garland M. Budd proposed a location in the 250 – 400 block of S. Krome Ave. Conveniently enough, that location was part of George W. Hall’s Hall’s Addition (Book 3, Page 73) to Homestead. There was a considerable amount of time devoted to discussing the location for the new town hall before the Council narrowed down their options to either lots 7 and 8 ($700) or lots 11 and 12 ($600) of Block 1 of the Commerce Addition. By a vote of 4-3 on February 7, 1916, the Council decided to build the new Town Hall on lots 7 and 8 of Block 1 in the Commerce Addition. $300 towards the cost of the lots had been promised by City Auditor Sid Livingston from “the citizens to apply to the purchase of either of the two propositions.”

The Commerce Addition plat is available from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts website – it is in Book 2, Page 97. William J. Krome was acting as attorney in fact for W. D. and Ida V. Horne, J. E. and Alice R. Miller (Miller’s Addition to Homestead – July 30, 1912, Book 1, Page 147), R. F. and Jessie Tatum (Mayor of the Town of Homestead, a lawyer and owner of a real estate company) and his wife, Isabelle B. Krome. These people were the owners of the property when it was platted.

The Commerce Addition was later purchased by the Homestead Realty Company and was assessed at $6,900 on a delinquent tax list published on August 16, 1917. The officers of The Homestead Realty, Farms & Investment Company were Henry R. Pridgen, President and Director; Archie J. Campbell, Vice President and Director; Russell F. Tatum, Secretary, Purchasing and Sales Agent and Director; Thomas A. Campbell, Director; and Henry Brooker, Sr., Director. It was incorporated on August 26, 1916.

It seems as though there was quite a political struggle over where the Town Hall was to be located. The Homestead Realty Company was the winner and Hall’s group were the losers. No doubt, it didn’t hurt that there was a sum of money proffered to influence the Council in their deliberations.

In August of 1917, George W. Hall traded his property in the Homestead area, consisting of 6 homes, 14 vacant lots and 40 acres of land in the Redland to Charles H. Woodbury for land in North Dakota (where Woodbury was from) and moved north.

The new Town Hall building was designed by Harold Hastings Mundy, who was born in 1878 in Ontario, Canada but never became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He died in 1932 and is buried in the Hamilton Cemetery in Ontario, Canada. Mundy was a Dade County Schools architect who designed, among other schools, Coconut Grove Elementary, Robert E. Lee Junior High, and Miami Edison High.

The contract to build the town hall is among the documents that belong to the City of Homestead. That contract, costing $4,418 plus the cost of the doors, was awarded to John F. Umphrey on February 5, 1917. He was the low bidder, having come in below a bid from a Miami company for $5,600 and a Florida City company for $6,574. Umphrey was a local contractor who built a number of local buildings, including what is now known as Neva King Cooper School. Two buildings that he built that have been demolished were the George W. Hall residence at 304 S. Krome Avenue, the first California Mission Bungalow built in 1916 and Homestead High School, demolished in the 1970s. He also started the construction (but did not finish – he was fired by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs) of the Lodge in Royal Palm Park, which was moved to Homestead in the late 1950s. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and demolished..

The Town Hall building was mostly completed by August, according to an article that appeared in the August 16, 1917 issue of The Homestead Enterprise, but it did not have a septic tank yet. Fred Gidloff was awarded the $275 contract for the septic tank on December 3, 1917 and completed it on April 1, 1918. The lack of sanitary facilities didn’t stop town officials from moving in, however. Business was conducted in the new town hall from early September, 1917 on. The first floor, where the fire truck is now on display, housed the fire and police departments. In the rear of the building were four jail cells for white people. There was a separate wooden building in the parking lot behind the Town Hall that housed African-American prisoners, according to Bill Losner. The second floor was where the municipal offices were located.

City Hall

Photograph courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

In 1956, the Town Hall was remodeled after two city departments moved out. The police department moved to its new quarters just east of the municipal power plant. That building now houses the Homestead Utilities offices. The fire department moved to its new building on N.W. 2nd St. between N.W. 3rd and 4th Avenues. The jail cells were removed and the bottom floor was turned into office space for the growing city government.

The Town Hall served the needs of the residents of Homestead for almost 60 years. A new city hall, which had been in the planning stages since 1964, was built at 790 N. Homestead Boulevard in 1975. Edward M. Ghezzi, a well-known Miami architect who had moved to Homestead and had an office in the Redd Building (1922), designed the new city hall after being awarded the contract to do so in November of 1973. The bas relief mural on the front of the building was designed by a well-known Miami artist whose name I have been unable to discover. Ghezzi also designed the Shark Valley overlook in Everglades National Park. The official dedication of the new city hall was on November 23, 1975.

After the city vacated the old building, it was used as a senior citizen center and an office for the State of Florida’s parole and probation office until 1980, when the City of Homestead, at the behest of local merchants on Krome Avenue who wanted more parking, decided to demolish it. This decision resulted in a furious opposition movement. The vote on January 4, 1980 in favor of demolishing the building was 5-2, with Nick Sincore, Bill Dickinson, Bill McConnell, Walter Rutzke and Tommy Wilson in favor and Irving Peskoe and Ruth Campbell in opposition. Those in favor of demolition claimed that a new building, to be built in Musselwhite Park for $60,000, would replace the space that the senior citizen center occupied and which would be lost by demolishing the old City Hall. No thought was given to the history of the building. The opposition movement, led by Peskoe and Campbell, garnered donations of about $61,000 from the community and a State grant of $173,363 for the restoration of the building. Those community members who donated more than $250 are honored on an “Above and Beyond the Call” plaque mounted on the wall on the left side of the entrance to the Museum. The tiles on the wall, with the contributor’s names on them, honor those who contributed up to $250 towards the project.

Tiles
John Robert Barnes was the architect of record for the restoration project, which was finished in late 1994. The Town Hall Museum opened shortly thereafter.

George Santayana is often quoted as having written that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That wise saying applies to what the City of Homestead is now planning to do: to demolish the old Bank of Homestead building (1912) and the block of buildings to its south, including the Redd Building (1922) and the building where Fuchs Bakery got its start in 1913. This business block was platted in 1911 by John Ulric Free, one of the early pioneers of this area. Unfortunately for these buildings, there doesn’t seem to be a group of people passionate enough about their impending demolition to try to save them.