402 & 404 E. Main

Address:  402 & 404 E. Main

McQueen house

There was a building on the SE corner of Main and Washington St as early as 1851. George K. White was the village postmaster and kept the mail in a drawer under his cobbler’s bench in his Cobbler Shop at that location. Residents had to “stop in” to pick up their mail.

In 1860, Miss Carpenter had a millinery shop and Dr. J. B. Balcom had a physician-dental office upstairs over Issac N. White’s cobbler shop. Isaac N. White was also the village Post Master (1863). Later, Milton Barber operated a grocery store in the building and other businesses followed through the years. From 1892-1900, it is listed as tenements, or rooms to rent. 

George Winegar purchased the lot from A. L. Peck in 1902 and soon after took the earlier building down and built a stately Victorian house. George M. Winegar was a dealer in boots and shoes as well as a drug maker. In 1911, he started the Winegar Manufacturing Company in an empty building on West Main Street.

Dr. E. D.  and Mattie McQueen bought the house around 1920. They moved here from a house on the corner of W. Main and Hudson Streets where today’s BP gas station is. Doc was a horse veterinarian and surgeon, operated a livery, taxi service, and finally an automobile sales and garage business. Next his son, Bruce and Olive McQueen lived in the house. They were owners of the McQueen Motors Co. at 222 West Main. They first lived on the second floor of their business, probably moving into this house with Doc after his wife, Mattie, died in 1925. Their daughter Marjorie McQueen (Kropf) grew up here.

Today, the McQueen house can be seen behind the bank at 420 Kent Street. It was moved in 1984 so the bank could expand its parking lot.  The home features original woodwork, an open staircase with hidden bathroom, crystal chandeliers and a coal-burning fireplace with has been converted to gas.

Images:

This 1870 lithograph shows a 2-story wooden building on the site.

In 1885 the buildng was listed as an office.

A buckboard at Washington and Main Steet in the early 1900s when the house was new.

1904 or 1905 flood. The Winegar (McQueen) house is on the right and the McDannell/Hosley house on left.

View of the house looking east. Notice the brick street, 1938.

Doc and Mattie McQueen with sons Bruce and Perrin

Bruce and Olive McQueen

State Savings Bank (left) opened in 1961. Photo, 1966.

House was moved away in 1984.
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1944 flood showing (L-R) the Peckham, Hahn, McDannell/Hosley and McQueen houses.