Rupert Electric / Rupert Seed & Milling 

 

An early 1906 photograph shows a Flour & Feed store here. Joseph F. Hunt received transfer of land title from the public domain on August 31, 1907 by a special act of Congress. The lot then stood vacant for several years. The woodframe Dixon & Long Grocery Store, owned by Harvey Dixon and H. L. Long, was here from the 1910s to the 1920s, together with the wood-frame East Side Cafe. The March 6, 1919 issue of The Rupert Pioneer-Record advertised a grocery store in this location, and the 1921 Sanbourn map verifies a frame grocery store was on this lot. A late 1930s photograph shows this building, together with the buildings to the south, had been converted to brick structures. Grant Catmull ran the Rupert Seed and Milling Company here, selling garden supplies and seeds from large bulk bins in the back, and newly hatched chicks in season. In the early 1950s, this building and the building to the south were combined into the Country Squire Mall owned by the Catmull Brothers. It included such businesses as Broadhead Furniture, Broadhead Electric, Fashion Follies and BG's Floral. This building, together with the two buildings immediately to the south, also including a 25 x 73.5 foot addition at the rear which extends into the adjacent building to the north, were remodeled and incorporated into a single business prior to 1983. They became The Showkase Place, a furniture and appliance store. Decorative extended brick dentils support a modest cornice with a brick-capped parapet.