of Chillicothe, Ross County & South-Central Ohio
of Chillicothe, Ross County & South-Central Ohio new 8/22/04; updated 8/23/04, 8/25/04, 8/26/04 |
| The neglected Jacob Grohe grocery and its temporary neighbor for a few days. |
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| "I'm sure it constitutes no clear and present danger, but it comes off as one helluva psychological threat." |
Another week, another threat.
Another week, another loss.
The deisel excavator that sat beside the abandoned Victorian commerical building with the addresses of 280, 282, and 284 South Paint Street did its job August 25th and the rubble has been hauled away.
While I was scavenging in the ruins for any trinkets to salvage (and I found a few), I overheard that the delay in demolition (Between August 23 and 25) was becaue the job was underbid by half. Whatever the reason, it was probably impossibe to sway the "path of progress" once its maker was on the site. (The deisel excavator appeared beside the building Sunday.)
A demolition permit (number 2003-6736) had been granted for the property on June 23 of 2003; however, the city engineer's office has told me that such permits expire after one year. And yet, the city engineer's office has also told me a permit can be granted within one day...
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| The vacant commercial buildings at 280-284 S. Paint Street Monday. |
The property had been neglected for years, but still had promise - if it had not been condemned by the sterotypical unenlightened attitude that has consumed too much of Chillicothe's both common - and unique - architecture.
The continued 'business as usual' attitude of Chillicothe will end up making it a usual town instead of keeping it a unique town. Those of us with the vision to see that must continue to fight the inertia of banality and mundanity in order to protect and enhance our unique and outstanding history and architecture for future generations - and we must do a better job of it that than we have done in the past and present.
We have 30 years of slack to take up since the preservation district, zoning, National Register nominaions, and other activities set a foundation to protect the historic nature of our community. I feel that in the last few years things have been grudgingly improving, but only because we are climbing out of a pit of decline, and not rising above a plain of normalcy.
Who's ready to join the fight to 'Save Chillicothe' again?
This was actually two separate buildings in the front, the wider to the north having the addresses of 280 and 282, and the smaller to the south of 284. They appeared to be fairly common Italianate-styled late-nineteenth century two-story brick commercial buildings, such as can be found on West Water and Second streets - but these on South Paint had three notable features:
The person who is apparently most significantly associated whith this property is a German immigrant to min-nineteenth-century Chillicothe, Jacob Grohe (pronounced "grow-ee").
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| A detail of the detroyed building, above 284 South Paint. |
With a little research into a few city directories and a county history at the public library, and a chat with historian John Grabb, I've stitched together some of the history there at 280 South Paint Street.
Jacob was born in Germany about 1849 and emigrated in 1867 at age 18, with his brother Matthias. In Chillicothe he entered the bakery and grocery business, which a 1902 history states that "he has continued to the present time, being rated as one of the progressive men of Chillicothe."
He apparently established his grocery and bakery at 280 South Paint sometime between 1876 and 1887, and operated it there until sometime between 1917 and 1921. With wife and Chillicothe native Pauline Kellhofer, they lived at 282 South Paint and raised Matthias J., William, and Elizabeth Grohe.
(Son Matthias was born in 1874, and in 1898 he partnered with C. J. Ware as an undertaker, undoubtedly helping to establish the Ware Funeral Home. The elder Matthias Grohe, almost certainly his namesake, worked as a bartender at 298 East Main.)
Jacob Grohe probably built the building (at least the north part) when he began his grocery between 1876-1887. He may have added or remodelled the south part after several year's profits. In 1886 he had workmen build or rebuild a large baking oven in the back of the property, a domed brick structure maybe 8x10 feet and 5 feet tall. When it collapsed on a worker cleaning it out just after construction, the Chillicothe Leader newspaper reported on it in the usual Victorian dramatic prose.
By 1921, the grocery at 280 South Paint was operated by August M. Fromm, probably the brother of the founder of recent Fromm Printing. By 1938, the business was known as the "Peoples Grocery." By 1960 there was no longer any businesses in the building.
Between 1921 and 1926, the address 284 South Paint appears. Two "papermakers" (and their wives) lived there, John Weidauer and Edgar Foy, and I presume they worked at Mead or Chilpaco.
Much could be interpreted from the appearance of the buildings. The front was built in two parts in the late nineteenth century, or at least remodelled then. The southern part may have been built earlier and then remodelled; a nearby building dates to the 1830s, and others nearby easily date to the 1840s and 1850s.
As mentioned above, it appeared that the north part building was built by Jacob Grohe sometime between 1876-1887. The southern part may have been built or remodelled maybe ten year later. Other alterations could have been made soon after 1900 when the Mead paper mill was under new management, during World War I when Camp Sherman needed housing in the city, and soon afterward when Fromm may have become the new owner.
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| The cottages and extensions in the rear. |
A one-story rear extension was behind 284 S. Paint, and two other one-story cottages or offices are farther back. They were half smothered in vines, and could date anywhere between the 1830s and 1910s.
The bricks of the rear portion of 284 were thinner than usual, which indicated in my experience that it dates before 1830. (I collected several of them after the demolition.)
The buildings had stood vacant and neglected for several years, probably at least fifteen. At least one of the most important parts of the buildings had been cared for, the roof; it had been reshingled recently (the braces to hold planks in place for workers were still in place).
But, nothing else appears to have been cared for in the last two or three decades. The side pass-through had minor brick disease on the outside, and its wooden flooring and plaster walls are damaged by weather, but not enough to endanger the structure. The roof of a back porch had rotted through. The interior was not visible except for the center stairway, whose peeling paint indicated moisture inside.
Even with all this damage and decay, and presumably moderate damage inside, an investor with the right attitude could have renovated these buildings with the right methods at a reasonable cost. However, looking at these neglected buildings from the perspective of a run-of-the-mill contractor or investor only condemned them.
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| The detroyed building among its neighbors on South Paint. (The Jack's Tire's buildings are set back with a parking area in front, and so are not visible at this angle.) |
The Ross County Auditor's website lists the owners of the four parcels the buildings sit on as Charles E. & Bernice Barnes of 260 Brookside Drive, Chillicothe, the owners of "Jack's Tire & Auto Center" at 320 South Paint. In fact, they own every parcel on that side of Paint all the way down to Eighth Street, including a Victorian brick house, and a white wood frame house that may be quite old (and is vacant and neglected). They appear to have bought the Grohe buildings in September of 1995.
Why were these buildings neglected for so long? Why were they permitted to be neglected by a city with a minimum maintenance ordinance?
Why have they gone abandoned for so long with apparently no action from preservationists? (What can we do now?)
Why had they gone abandoned for so long with apparently no action from preservationists? (What can we do better?)
Is this property going to look like the one across the street and a little north? That is a property I am told was a row of two-story Paris-like Victorian apartments that were demolished years ago for a supposedly necessary parking lot - one that is at best only about one-fifth used. Or, will we see a characterless pole barn squatting on the site? Or an empty gravel bar?
P.S. Honey Creek flows underground just to the south of this site, and crosses Paint Street to run along the south side of 295 South Paint across the way, a tavern built and run by historian John Grabb's grandfather in the 1860s.
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