William H. and Roy A. Hopkins began their grocery business next door in a one story sandstone building constructed in 1900 by their father Archibald Hopkins, attaining a reputation for quality of both produce and service. Plans were completed for a new building in May of 1909, with construction beginning shortly thereafter.
To increase the building's income, the Hopkins Brothers built a second floor on their second grocery store, opening the
Modern Rooming House there. Newspaper articles of the day indicated that the parlor of the rooming house was often used to perform marriages, apparently young ladies living in the rooming house getting hitched there.
Unlike the 1900 sandstone building the 1909 Hopkins Block was faced with brick and a small amount of stone trim, most notably in the second story window frames, sills and lintels. A tiny brick parapet, centered in the roofline, bears the year of construction, 1909, done with iron or steel lettering. The ground floor store front is finished in wood, with pilasters carved to emulate cast iron pilasters. A really interesting feature is on the right (west) side of the building, where it appears to overlap the sandstone building, with a section of sandstone below and brick above, making it appear that the buildings have been melded into one.