Though it was early May when we passed through Bellevue, the day was warm enough that the thought of an ice cream was a not unpleasant one. They were spiffing up the place when we visited, just getting started on a new coat of paint for the outside.
On the side of the building, by the al fresco tables, is a nice mural of an idealized scene which includes the Ice Cream Shoppe, done in 2012 by J. Panek. Had we not stopped for ice cream we would have missed this one. Fairly large, it covers much of the east side of the shoppe. Painted on 6 - 4X8 foot panels, it is 24 X 8 feet in size.
You can read a bit of the building's history below.
Haddad Bros. Building
Emmerson Building
The first building to occupy the southeast corner of Front Street and Maple Avenue included three businesses. Haddad Bros. Dry Goods (1912) and Evans Bakery occupied the front section of the building and E C McDonald Drug Store occupied the rear section of the building. The Haddad Block of stores was one of three business establishments to survive both Bellevue fires of 1917 and 1921.
In 1922 however, fire did destroy the building that by then housed Sadd's Dry Goods and Evans Bakery in the front section and Martell's Barber Shop and Doc Barbour's Bellevue Pharmacy in the rear section. By 1924 Charles Emmerson had erected Emmerson's Hardware, the present building, on this site. In subsequent years Evan's Hardware followed by Nunn's Hardware occupied the Emmerson Building.
In the early 1950s Pass Dairy Ltd., owned by Joe and Maggie Fauville, relocated here from Bellevue's original Main Street. to 1968, Rudy Andrist purchased Pass Dairy Ltd. where he produced his nationally acclaimed "Pass Dairy Mozzarella Cheese". In 1969 he expanded the operation to include the popular soft ice cream parlor. In 1992, Alpha Dairy bought out and closed the dairy.
In 1994 Murielle Lapointe purchased the dairy where she reestablished the ice cream parlor under the name of the Old Dairy Ice Cream Shoppe. The ice cream shop continues to be operated by Murielle and John Carlson. (2006)
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