Open house Friday for historic building facade transplant project in Arcola

[September 24, 2009]  ARCOLA -- A beauty wants everyone to know she had a face transplant. The public is invited to an open house Friday at 11 a.m. at 107 E. Main St. in Arcola to view a 100-year-old facade that was saved from the wrecking ball in Stewardson.

The open house combines the history of two east-central Illinois towns -- the Shelby County community of Stewardson and the Douglas County town of Arcola, about 35 miles away.

In 2006, plans were being made to demolish the 1893 vintage Opera Hall in Stewardson, which had suffered from years of unrepaired storm damage. The Opera Hall featured a classical architecture-themed storefront created by the Mesker Brothers Iron Works of St. Louis. Just as the building was about to be razed, Wilmer Otto contacted the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. He owned a building in Arcola and was looking for an authentic, ornamental sheet-metal Mesker facade to replace a facade that had been destroyed by a fire in 1950. The IHPA put the two parties together and they struck a deal.

Otto arranged for local contractor Henry Chupp to dismantle the Opera House storefront in 2006. Arcola businesses J.B. Helmeth and Kaskaskia Metal Works carefully glassbead-blasted, repaired and painted the ornamental metal. During July this year, Chupp installed the Stewardson Opera House facade on the Arcola building that currently houses The Primitive Goose antique shop.

The open house celebration will feature the mayors of Stewardson and Arcola; an IHPA representative; David Mesker, a descendant of one of the Mesker Brothers; and other dignitaries.

The Mesker Brothers figured out how to economically shape cast iron and sheet metal into friezes, corbels and cornices that would fit on the front of store buildings and display an accurate appearance of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. They adorned their buildings with metal classical columns and pilasters, providing a facade that appeared to be supporting a massive stone structure.

George L. Mesker, one of the brothers, made prefabricated, ornamental facades in Evansville, Ind. Ben and Frank Mesker make similar classical architectural designs in St. Louis, Mo. Both companies sold the metal storefronts by catalog and shipped them by rail. They were very popular in small towns. Not only were they artistically elegant and attractive, but they were also a bargain -- about one-fifth of the cost of regular construction. A 1905 catalog shows the price of a 21-foot storefront, including both lower and upper floors, as $168. A 25-foot storefront was listed as $188.

Mesker storefronts are found in more than 250 Illinois towns, and Arcola has six of these facades. In contrast to modern buildings, the Mesker buildings give the town an elegant and classical appearance that complements Arcola's charming brick streets and the architecture of many of the town's Victorian and Prairie-School houses from the late 19th and early 20th century.

The restored storefront on Arcola's East Main Street today looks remarkably similar to the original in a photograph from the early 1900s. Currently the buildings in that block are occupied by Otto Real Estate, The Primitive Goose, Farmer's National and the law office of Mark T. Petty.

For more information on the open house, e-mail [e-mail] or call Otto Real Estate at 217-268-3051. Anyone with old photographs of the Stewardson Opera House or of the original Arcola building can e-mail them to [e-mail] or bring them to the open house.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]