By: Stan Jordan
The above picture of 103 West River St. is now Small Town Bliss, that is a beauty salon owned and operated by Audrey Feasby.
Let me tell you what I know about the history of this building and lot…well, this whole area.
This building went along with the big store on the left, which was Doering and Long in my time (1940 on) and this building was sort of an overflow warehouse for them. I used to sack potatoes for the store in this building, 15 lbs to a peck. At that time it was quite old and sure didn’t look this good.
Along around 1942 I went in the army until 1945 and this building was still a part of Doering and Long grocery store. Charles Van Horn had the building as a barber shop along with Joe Koenn. Now, this went on for a few years and then Charles Mobley had a barber shop there for years, and Bob Wyckoff had a shop there for a while. I think that was before Charles Mobley, but I’m not sure.
We jump up to 1996 and Willie Doll purchased that building and they operated an antique shop there for many years, much remodeling. Then in 2003 it became the law office for Suzanne Rister until May of 2016, when it was sold to Audrey Feasby and she named it Small Town Bliss. It is an asset to the town.
Just to the right is an open parking lot, but I can remember when that was the Lamb Hotel. It was a going business for years. The last family who lived in that hotel was the Gabor Berenyi family. It even had a big veranda over the sidewalk. Then on the corner was a big 2 story house, green in color owned by Russell Murphy. I know of two lady school teachers who lived there.
In the south end of that building, at different times, was the office of Dr. Brattain, Dr. Spragens and then Dr. Bazali. About 1960 or 1970 Tommy Schilb had that building built that is there now. It was for television sets, as that was big stuff then. Then years later that building was sold to Oley McMichael.
See ya!
