136 South Main - St. Charles, Missouri
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 38° 46.831 W 090° 28.905
15S E 718747 N 4295432
Marker for historic commercial building in downtown St. Charles.
Waymark Code: WMDEDE
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 01/02/2012
Views: 9
Text of marker:
136 South Main
Gut Building/Post Office 1900-09 - Cosmos Building 1886
1882 - Frederick Gut
An earlier two-story stone structure, known as the Old Benne Building built by Joseph C. Easton circa 1840, was replaced by this building in 1882. The new Second Empire/Italianate building with its parade balcony and bracketed cornices and pediments was built by Frederick Gut. It was home to many businesses including the Hahn Bakery, the Bruns Machine Company, The Cosmos and the St. Charles Banner newspaper offices, and the U.S. Post Office while the new Post Office was being built across the street.
Behind the building was a brick bake oven for the bakery, various other outbuildigns, and H.B. Denker's Pork House, a landmark in St. Charles. Three to five-thousand hogs a year were unloaded from train cars into the pigpens near the tracks, butchered, and processed on site.