Quick Facts

NPS Description

120 South Main Street, ca. 1890s. 

Contributing 

Description

Commercial Late Victorian two-story retail/mixed use building with a frontage of 21 feet on South Main Street. The upper façade is brick covered in stucco with decorative rock-face stone blocks in brick end piers and a projecting denticulated cornice with modillions and brick corbelling underneath. Above the cornice is a brick parapet with decorative stone end caps. The second-story windows are replacement aluminum double-hungs with two fixed windows in between. Surrounding the second-story windows is painted wood paneling with decorative woodwork in the arched transom and stone arched trim above. String courses line the bottom of the wood paneled window surround and the bottom of the arched stone trim above the second story windows. The storefront has aluminum and glass fixed windows and side door to the south in a recessed entry with a tile apron. A small aluminum projecting canopy with recessed lighting caps the recessed entry, with a decorative transom board signage for “The Market on Main.” 

The west (rear) elevation is of brick with areas of concrete block repair. The second-floor windows are aluminum replacements that extend below the stone sills. The north and south (side) elevations are not visible due to adjoining buildings. 

The interior is remodeled with modern finishes but retains a silhouette of an arched doorway and window, now blocked in, from the original basement walk-out. 

History 

120 South Main Street was built in the late 1890s and first housed a hardware store. In the 1910s it was a meat store, and the Strand Pool Room and then the A&P store in the 1920s. From 1932 to 1978 the Gambles Hardware store occupied the building. During the occupancy of Gambles, the store encompassed the first floors of both 120 and 118 South Main. This merged storefront remained in the 1980s and 90s as Ace Hardware. The dividing wall was re-established and the Mole Hole gift shop moved here from across the street in the late 1990s and remained into the 2000s. It is currently the Market on Main. *as of 2014

Integrity Analysis 

The building remains much as it appeared originally. It retains its original cornice and exterior materials and trim, although portions of the upper façade brick have been covered with a thin layer of stucco. The second-floor windows have been altered from their original configuration, and the storefront is also a later configuration. 

Sources 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (Mt. Pleasant: 1884, 1890, 1895, 1900, 1910, 1924, 1931, 1950); Mt. Pleasant City Directories, 1925-1998; Past and Present of Isabella County, 1911; City of Mt. Pleasant Building Permits; historic photographs.