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Holmes Building This building, at 1715 Broadway, had many uses throughout
its life. The Plaza Hotel was located
here, as seen in this 1937 picture (left), and also the Blue Bird Diner.
Three generation of Holmes’s, the owners of the building, operated R.T.
Holmes Sample Room from here. One of
Mattoon’s eleven licensed saloons in the early 1900’s. Like Lynch’s Saloon, cigars were
manufactured on site and sold at the saloon.
To the right, you can see men gathering in front of the saloon. The Kahn building is the first building
beyond the Holmes. When the city council created a library in 1893, they
leased the rooms from the Holmes building before moving to the City building
on 17th Street in 1896.
The library finally moved to it present building after it was
completed in 1903. The Y.M.C.A leased the second floor of the Holmes
building for their permanent headquarters when they were created in
1879. They used the Holmes building until
they bought their own property in 1912. Located on the east side of the Holmes building, was The
Blue Bird Candy Shop. This was “the”
place to go for high school students in the 1920’s. The Blue Bird was known as Green and Gold Headquarters. The building was torn down in 1959. Today, like so many other properties, it has been redeveloped into a parking lot.
At the time of this drawing, it was the Smith and Johns Building
This is the earliest known photo of downtown Mattoon. The Holmes Building is the front building
Holmes building was to the right, Kahn to the left |
