Among the historic buildings in Pekin’s old downtown is a structure at 215 Court St. that was first built around 125 years ago – though it has undergone a lot of remodeling and expansion since then. In recent years, this building was beautifully restored and revitalized by Todd Thompson of 353 Court LLC.
215 Court St. is the home of Aerial Athletics. Over the years, 215 Court St. has seen businesses as varied as boarding houses, bicycle repair, automobile garages, used and antique furniture stores, and residential apartments. For about 25 years it was also the home of the Pekin Moose Lodge No. 916.
Before the construction of the 215 Court St. building, an earlier and smaller building occupied the site during the latter decades of the 1800s. The 1871 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin lists a boarding house called Washington House, located somewhere between Second and Third streets and operated by a German immigrant named Charles Bross (1832-1920). An 1877 aerial view map of Pekin shows a structure at about that site, called the “L. Boss Boarding House.” The 1876 Bates City Directory of Pekin identifies that building as the St. Louis Exchange, with the proprietor as Louis Boss.
It is unclear whether Bross’ boarding 1871 boarding house is the same as Boss’ St. Louis Exchange. In any case, Washington House does not appear in the 1876 Bates City Directory of Pekin. Instead, the 1876 directory shows not only Boss’ St. Louis Exchange, but also a building then numbered 219 Court St., which was then a saloon and boarding house operated by Florence Barrett. In the 1870s – when Pekin still had much of the character of an “Old West” kind of town – keeping a saloon was commonly viewed as a very inappropriate occupation for a woman, and Barrett’s cause and place of death in Nov. 1879 that are listed in the 1880 U.S. Census Mortality Schedule strongly indicate that Barrett was running a house of ill-repute.
It’s unknown what businesses were located at 219 (later 215) Court St. in the early 1880s, but the 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows a machine shop in the eastern half of the building. The 1887 Pekin city directory tells us that another German immigrant named Carl Weibezahn had a gunsmithy there — perhaps the 1885 machine shop was Weibezahn’s. Tazewell County marriage records tell us that Weibezahn had married Lena Meyers on 11 June 1881.
City directories and Sanborn maps show Weibezahn’s gun shop at that same location for the remainder of the 19th century, and like many downtown business owners he had his residence in that same building. The 1893 directory is the first one to list this address as “215” Court St. In the 1895 city directory, we find William F. Linnemann’s Pekin Steam Dye Works sharing 215 Court with Weibezahn, whom the directory identifies as a gunsmith and general repairer.
A close comparison of the 1892 and 1898 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Pekin seems to indicate that the building at 215 Court St. was replaced or at least extensively remodeled. The 1892 map notes that the structure was “old” (and thus more of a fire risk), while the drawing of the building at 215 Court on the 1898 map has a somewhat different shape and is no longer marked as “old.” The Tazewell County Assessor’s website says that the building that today stands at 215 Court St. was built in 1900, which may be related to the changes at 215 Court St. that the 1898 Sanborn map reveals.
The 1898 directory says Weibezahn’s business was then called C. Weibezahn & Son, and says Weibezahn then had a partner named George Jerger (1875-1916), a Pekin Spanish-American War veteran whose business was called Central Bicycle Works. This remarkable combination of gunsmithing and bicycle repair seems to have continued for a few more years, but by the time of the 1904 Pekin city directory Jerger is listed as the sole proprietor of a bicycle and general repairing business at 215 Court St. Weibezahn had either died or moved away. The 1904 directory also lists an Albert A. Breaden, machinist, living above Jerger’s business.
Jerger’s repair shop was gone by the time of the 1908 Pekin city directory, which shows the Lohnes Bros. barbershop at 215 Court St., owned and operated by Hugo C. Lohnes (1868-1936) and his brother August Lohnes (1876-1955). The Lohnes Bros. barbershop is again listed at 215 Court in the 1909 Pekin city directory, which also shows Moses A. Odom (1851-1918), cobbler, at 215 1/2 Court St. By the time of the 1913 directory, though, the barbershop at 215 Court was being run by Otto B. Scheidekat (or Scheidukat) (1889-1918), while Odom still had his shoemaker’s shop at 215 1/2 Court. The 1914 directory again shows Scheidekat’s barbershop at 215 and Odom’s shoemaking shop at 215 1/2.
The 1913 and 1914 Pekin city directory also show people living in upstairs apartments at 215 Court. However, that arrangement did not last for long, because at some point between the publications of the 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin and the 1922 Pekin city directory, the building at 215 Court St. underwent extensive remodeling and expansion in order to turn the structure into an automobile garage. The 1922 Pekin city directory shows 215 Court St. as the location of Supreme Garage, owned and operated by the brothers Earl K. Smith (1896-1972) and Lloyd F. Smith (1898-1984). The 1925 Sanborn map shows that their garage had a 50-car capacity.
On the 1926 city directory, we find that Supreme Garage at 215 Court St. had become the Hamann Bros. garage, operated by Julius J. Hamann (1900-1966) and William Hamann (1897-1949), with Henry S. Lang (1891-1966) as their auto dealer. The Hamanns didn’t have the garage for very long, because in the 1928 directory we find that Samuel J. Robinson (1877-1934) was selling used cars at the former Hamann Bros. garage. Robinson, who also had a furniture store at 305 Court, is again listed in the 1930 Pekin city directory as operating an auto garage at 215 Court.
Robinson’s business was probably hit by the Great Depression, because in the 1932 city directory we see that Robinson’s garage had become the Pekin Army Store, operated by Thomas J. Dwyer (1899-1963). This same directory also shows at least 10 people living in upstairs apartments at 215 1/2 Court St. The building’s upstairs space would continue to be used as apartments for the rest of the 20th century.
The 1934 Pekin city directory shows 215 Court St. as vacant, but the upstairs apartments at 215 1/2 Court were still occupied. In the 1937 directory, though, James P. Yiakos was operating the Bell Army Store at 215 Court St., but soon after that Yiakos moved his store a short distance east to 221 Court St. After Yiakos’ departure, Pekin city directories have no listing for 215 Court St. until 1971.
Meanwhile, in 1937 there were five apartment units occupied upstairs at 215 1/2 Court, while the 1939 city directory lists 10 apartment units with five of them vacant. The 1941 directory lists a total of 11 apartment units.
In the 1948 Pekin city directory, we find for the first time that the 215 1/2 Court St. apartments had acquired a name: Moose Apartments. The Tazewell County Assessor’s website shows that at this time, the 215 Court St. building was owned by the Loyal Order of Moose, who thus were the landlords for the building’s 11 apartment units. The Moose Lodge, No. 916, occupied the ground level of the building, with the address of 213-215 Court St. The upstairs dwellings continued to be known as Moose Apartments up to the 1980 city directory, which is the last directory in which they bear that name.
The 1971 Pekin city directory shows that the Moose Lodge had relocated to 2605 Broadway, where they have been ever since. In its place, a new business had located in the 215 Court St. building for the first time since James P. Yiakos’ Bell Army Store in the 1930s. That business was L & L Auction, whose proprietors were Larry Biddle and his wife Linda S. Biddle. L & L Auction didn’t last very long there, though, because in the following year the directory shows Mrs. Wilma Thomas’ Capitol Used Furniture at 215 Court.
Thomas’ business also didn’t stay very long in the building, for in the 1973 Pekin city directory we see that the U.S. Social Security Administration had set up its local office at 215 Court St., sharing the building with the State Vocational & Incentive Program. The Social Security Office remained at 215 Court St. until 1989.
In the 1980 directory, we read that the old Moose Apartments upstairs at 215 1/2 Court St. had acquired a new name: Pekin Downtown Properties, managed by Mrs. Edith P. Lough. That was the year Milton G. Christy (1924-1987) purchased the 215 Court St. building. In the 1982 directory, Pekin Downtown Properties becomes “Christy’s Apartments,” still managed by Mrs. Lough. Following Christy’s death, his apartments at 215 1/2 Court St. went vacant and remained so until the early 1990s, about which time Greg Ranney acquired the 215 Court St. building.
The 1989 city directory is the last one to list the Social Security Administration at 215 Court St. The following year, we see that the Senior Citizens Downtown Drop-In, directed by Elizabeth C. Lenington (1913-2003), had moved into 215 Court, while the 215 1/2 Court St. apartments remained vacant. The Senior Citizens Downtown Drop-In appears again in the 1991 and 1992 city directories, but the 1993 directory listing for 215 Court says “Not Verified.”
That same year, Greg Ranney’s Court Street Apartments make their first city directory appearance at 215 1/2 Court St., with five apartment units occupied. Then in the 1994 directory, we find that Cliff’s Used Furniture, owned and operated by Cliff Manuel, had moved into 215 Court St. City directories continue to list Manuel’s store at that address until 1998, when we find Ricky J. Woith’s Rick’s TV & Appliance listed at both 215 and 300 Court St.
The 2000 and 2001 Pekin city directories show a used merchandise store called Red Door Reproduction at 215 Court. In the 2002 directory, however, we find Edward Manuel’s Pekin Used Furniture at that address, where it continued to be listed until the 2014 city directory, the last time Manuel’s used furniture store appears at 215 Court. On 4 March 2015, the 215 Court St. building was acquired by 353 Court LLC, the company of developer Todd Thompson, who restored and revitalized the structure. From 2015 to 2019, the directories list Pekin Insurance at 215 Court. Curiously, the most recent city directories do not have a listing for 215 Court St. at all. Even so, Aerial Athletics has been operating from 215 Court for the past several years.
