Eshelman, J., and Company Store - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

During the fourth quarter of the 19th century, the Eshelman store was perhaps the most important retail commercial structure in Erie County outside the city of Buffalo. Remarkably well preserved, it exemplifies the type of brick and cast iron commercial building common to the region from the 1850s to the 1880s. Built by a leader of the large German population in the area, the store evokes the economic prosperity that came to Buffalo and the surrounding countryside after the Civil War. In its dual function as store and meeting hall, it embodies the sense of community pride that affluence awakened in this and other rural communities in Western New York. In the 19th century the Italiante style store appeared in atlases as the chief landmark of its village.

John Eshelman had a general store in Clarence Center since the 1850s. In 1872, John and Andrew Eshelman purchased the land and built this building with bricks made in a nearby kiln operated by Jacob Eshelman. The building incorporates an auditorium on the third floor and a smaller meeting room on the ground floor where trials were often conducted. Thus, the building became the scene of cultural, political, and judicial events in the community.

The Eshelman store is a fine example of the standard type of cast iron and brick commercial architecture commonly built in Buffalo and Western New York in the 1870s. Many of these structures have either been demolished or greatly altered. Thus it is rare a building of this type and size remain in the area.

Street address: 6000 Goodrich Rd Clarence Center, NY United States 14032 County / Borough / Parish: Erie Year listed: 1982 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1850-1874 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Social: Department Store, Meeting Hall Current function: Retail Store Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 1: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   04/17/2008 pastorchuck visited it

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