Old Drum Coffeehouse

  • Old Drum Coffeehouse

HISTORY

209 N Holden
This building was built in the early 1900’s and has served as a storefront for local businesses and restaurants. Fowlers Bakery was established in 1913. The building also was home to M. J. Johnson’s Millinery in 1931, and Quarry City Savings and Loan in 1958-1972.

211 N Holden
This building has served as a storefront for local businesses and restaurants since 1913, where it started as the Central Grocery store. In 1932, the Krohn Brothers took over the grocery store in 1932, and then it became Montgomery-Ward Catalog store in 1958 with Burr Studios on the top floor.

FUN FACTS

209 N Holden

  • One of this building’s previous owners, Max Ridenhour of PCMR, is one of the youngest downtown business owners and Main Street board participants for his time, developing his company since he was 17.
  • The Krohns brothers sub-leased from J.C. Penny’s.
  • Mrs. Montgomery-Ward of the catalog store has donated 3 million to Northwestern University Architecture.
211 N Holden 
  • L.C. Fowler of Fowler’s Bakery opened and closed his business in Warrensburg twice, although it remained a bakery. He managed a hotel in Everton, MO, in between business ownership, and decided to take back ownership after the Bennett Bros quit business in 1916.
  • Johnson’s Millinery won fifth out of fourteen businesses in a window display contest in 1935.
  • Johnson’s Millinery was one of the stores a suspicious business woman stopped into while robbing the businesses of Warrensburg in 1930.
  • Simmons Studio was located on the top floor at 209 N. Holden during the 1940s. For many years, citizens of Warrensburg hired the photographer to record the images or events that were important to them. When the business closed, they left negatives behind that documented life in Warrensburg during that era.
  • Seventy years after they were abandoned, the building’s owner found the negatives and donated them to the Historical Society.

ARCHITECTURE

Built around 1900, 209 N. Holden and 211 N. Holden are identical. The two-story two-part commercial block has brick cladding and a flat roof. A corbelled parapet with recessed brick panels and cast stone coping caps the building. The primary (west) elevation has three bays; the second story fenestration defines the bays.  Cast stone sills fill the second story bays and individual fabric awnings shade the windows. Despite alterations to the storefronts, this building retains integrity and clearly communicates its historic commercial function and the era in which it was constructed, rendering it contributing to the historic district.