The current Robnett's Hardware building is significant as being Corvallis' oldest commercial building. An online historical walking tour contains a page devoted to this building's history and tells us:
J. C. Avery Building
Significance
The J. C. Avery Building, although altered to a great extent, is historically significant as Corvallis' oldest commercial building. The building is also associated with J. C. Avery, Corvallis' founder. Built in the 1850's, the building once served as a supply headquarters for miners heading south to the gold fields. The J.C. Avery Building is one of only three commercial buildings in downtown Corvallis to predate 1880. Since the 19th Century, the function of the building as a hardware and implement store has not changed.
Historical Background
This building was built for J. C. Avery, the founder of Corvallis, probably in the mid-1850's.
J. C. Avery was born in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1817. After moving west to Illinois in 1839, J. C. Avery crossed the plains to Oregon in 1845, taking a claim at the juncture of the Willamette and Mary's Rivers. He had married Miss Martha Marsh in 1841 and she joined him here in 1846. In the winter of 1850, he laid out the town of Marysville (Corvallis).
By 1857, an advertisement appears in the Occidental Messenger, a Corvallis newspaper, indicating that J. C. Avery and Company were located in a fireproof brick building at the corner of 2nd and Adams Streets. (In the early 1850's, Avery had a store, probably wood-frame, on the southwest corner of 2nd and Washington.) J.C. Avery and Company sold dry goods, clothing, boots, shoes, provisions, groceries, domestic produce, hardware, cutlery, iron, steel, axes and tools. Many of these goods were sold to miners heading south to the gold fields. In 1857, E. Holgate and D.G. Clark were partners in Avery's business.
In May of 1891, R. M. Wade and Company leased this building. R.M. Wade and Company is believed to had several agricultural implement stores in the state, including stores at one time in Salem, McMinnville, and Portland. Mr. William Currin, a nephew of R. M. Wade who had managed R. M. Wade's Corvallis store almost continuously since its establishment in 1891, took sole possession of the business in 1911. The business, known as Currin Agricultural Implements, carried such goods as hardware, vehicles, and farming implements. In 1917, the firm became known as Currin and Spurlin Hardware. Floyd Spurlin was a nephew of Mr. Currin. William Currin died in 1922 and in 1924, Mr. Spurlin went into partnership with Arthur Lilly; the business name changing to Spurlin and Lilly. Mr. Lilly sold out in 1937 and Mr. Spurlin's daughter and son-in-law, Virginia and Charles Robnett and Riley and Bernice Newman entered into a partnership. The name of the business changed to Spurlin and Robnett's. In 1962, the name was changed to Robnett's Hardware when Virginia Robnett, after the death of her husband, Charles, and father, Mr. Spurlin, took her son Jerry and daughter Donna into partnership. In 1977, the store was sold to Jerry Robnett and his wife Julia. The business was incorporated in 1978.