109 High Street West - Oskaloosa City Square Commercial Historic District - Oskaloosa, Ia. - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

Date of Construction: 1880, remodeled 1912.

Information taken from pages 18 & 19 of the pdf for Type V buildings and pages 137 & 138 of the pdf on the specific building.

Type V Building - Type V buildings are, again, the standard rectangular commercial box with loadbearing masonry walls. Most of these buildings are two-stories in height, only four examples are three-story buildings. The only one-story building in the entire district is also of this type. The bricks of the Type V facade are slightly larger than those of the earlier building types and display a new range of color: from tan to dark brown, with a marked gradation within each color. Textures have changed, too. Several Type V building facades are constructed of the rough, striated bricks newly popular at this time.

At their second levels, Type V buildings have wide, double-hung windows with large single pane sashes. Windows are either paired or regular spaced. The approximate 2:1 proportions of the windows and the examples of paired windows reinforce the new horizontality of the facades. On many of these buildings, ornament is limited to horizontal bands of raised or recessed brick laid in repetitive rectilinear patterns. These decorative brick bands run the full width of the facade, usually just above the upper level windows, and are commonly of a contrasting color. Simple corbeled brick cornices are also common, as are name and date plaques. A stepped parapet appears on one building of this type.

As with other buildings of this district, the street level facade of Type V buildings have been repeatedly renovated so that original materials, in many cases, have been lost.

Specific to building - Architect unknown. After fire in 1912 (Walton Bros. Clothing Store), new facade was built, facade unified with building to the west. Storefront altered.

This building represents a Type V, commercial brick, facade unification of two earlier Type III, Victorian Italianate, facades. A fire in 1912 brought about the need for this. As a "remodel" then, it does not exhibit some essential features of the style such as horizontal window proportions, grouped windows, etc. because the window openings survived the fire and were kept. Elements of the commercial brick style which do appear, however, are two dimensional flatness of ornament - executed in multi-colored brick and a lack of historicist ornament.

History of the building tenants:
1889 - Cruzen & Cruzen, Grocers; Nelson & Williams, Attorneys; J.E. Scruggs, Real Estate; C.E. Winter, Real Estate
1902 - Walton's Clothing; Upper - E. Orvis, Attorney
1911 - Walton's Clothing
1925 - M.E. Reiley Jewelers
1936 - M.E. Reiley Jewelers; Upper - Dr. G.F. Failor
1954 - Reiley 1 s Jewelers