Since the latter 1990s, the 515 Court St. building has been the home of Salon Renaissance, a beauty salon owned and operated by Brad and Debra Barnard. But almost 120 years before Salon Renaissance opened there, a German immigrant named Johan Michael Ehrhardt (1831-1914), born in Ober-Ostern, Hesse Darmstadt, ran a tailor’s shop at that location.
Records show no structures or businesses at 515 Court St. until after 1877. A hand-drawn 1877 aerial view map of Pekin shows that there were then no buildings at all from about the middle of the north side of the 500 block of Court Street up to the corner of Court and Sixth streets. However, the 1876-77 Pekin city directory lists J. Michael Ehrhardt, tailor, with his shop on the south side of Court Street, four doors east of Fifth Street.
Not long after that, Ehrhardt moved across the street to a new house he’d built on the lot now known as 515 Court St., but which was originally numbered 613 Court St. The 1887 city directory shows Ehrhardt living and working as a “merchant tailor” along with his son Philip L. Ehrhardt (1871-1955), also a tailor, at 613 Court. In the 1893 Pekin city directory, Michael and his son Philip are again listed as tailors at 513 Court (formerly 613) in the firm of M. Ehrhardt & Son. (Remarkably, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Pekin during this period usually identify this address as “515” Court St., while the directories list the address as “513.”)
We find their firm at that address once again in the 1895 and 1898 city directories, but from the 1904 directory onward Michael is listed alone. The 1912 Pekin city directory shows that Michael had retired by that year. He and his wife Eva and daughter Mary continued to be listed as residents of 513 Court St. until the 1914 directory. Michael passed away on 10 Nov. 1914 and is buried in Lakeside Cemetery, and his widow followed him on 3 Jan. 1916 and was buried by his side.
Some time after that, the Ehrhardt family sold the building. By the time of the 1922 Pekin city directory, we find August Albert Zimmerman (1860-1943) living at 513 Court St. and running a bakery there. By 1924, however, Zimmerman had sold his bakery to Robert Orvil Schwenk (1884-1945), who is listed in the 1924 directory as the proprietor the Schwenk Bakery & Confectionery at 513 Court. Zimmerman still lived at that address, though. Then in the 1926 directory we find that Zimmerman had moved out and Schwenk was both living at 513 1/2 Court St. and working as a baker at 513 Court. (After 1930 we find Schwenk’s bakery at 527 Court St.)
It was around this time that a new structure was erected on the vacant lot on the west of the old 513 Court St. building. With the construction of that building, the city directories begin to show the old 513 Court St. building as renumbered to “515” Court (a change the Sanborn maps had recognized since the 1890s), while the directories give the new building the number “513.” This major change is reflected in the 1928 Pekin city directory, which is the first Pekin directory to list the address “515 Court St.”
The 1928 directory shows Robert Daub, baker, and Edward Adam Messmer (1889-1944), insurance agent and Pekin City Commissioner for Public Property, at 513 Court St., while at 515 Court St. we find two businesses: 1) the Pekin Tire & Rubber Co., whose owners were Albert Raymond Hieser (1927-2016), Edward Reubin Hieser (1918-1997), and Theodore W. Brosmer (1905-1962); and 2) an electrical appliances shop owned and operated by Henry Shutler Kluever (1893-1949), who like Messmer also served on the Pekin City Council as a Commissioner.
The 1930 city directory shows that 513 Court St. had become an Ideal Troy laundry and cleaners, managed by Jack Anderson, while at 515 Court St. that year we find Commissioner Edward A. Messmer’s insurance office, along with a new paints and sign business owned and operated by Charles Clifford Knapp Sr. (1892-1980). Knapp’s business had opened at 515 Court St. in 1928, which indicates that the Pekin Tire & Rubber Co. must have closed there the same year that it first appeared in Pekin city directories.
The 1932 and 1934 directories show the Kinsey Engineering Co., owned by Leon B. Kinsey (1880-1973), at 515 1/2 Court St., alongside Knapp’s paints and signs business at 515 Court. Kinsey’s engineering firm no longer appears at that address after 1934. Significantly, Kinsey was involved in the construction of Pekin’s new lift bridge in 1930, and both Kinsey and Commissioner Messmer took part in the Pekin bridge’s dedication ceremonies on 2 June 1930. Messmer is also recorded in Pekin history as one of the three leaders of the Pekin Ku Klux Klan who co-owned the Pekin Daily Times for a few years in the early 1920s.
In addition to Knapp’s business at 515 Court St., the 1937 directory also shows Charles J. Causey, janitor, living at 515 1/2 Court St. Beginning with the 1939 city directory, however, Knapp’s paint and wallpaper business is shown as the sole occupant of the 515 Court St. building. The Tazewell County Assessor’s website says the present 515 Court St. building was constructed in 1940, which agrees with the record of the directories which begins to list Knapp’s business as sole occupant about that time.
In later directories, the name of Knapp’s business is given as the Knapp Paint & Wall Paper Co., or the Knapp Paint & Wall Paper Store. Knapp’s obituary, printed in the 1 May 1980 Pekin Daily Times, says, “In the painting business as a young man in Chicago, Mr. Knapp moved to Pekin in 1917 and, in 1928, opened the Knapp Wallpaper and Paint Store. He retired in October, 1974.” His business at 515 Court St. is thus listed a final time in the 1974 Pekin city directory.
After Knapp’s retirement, his building remained vacant for a few years. The building’s next owner was none other than Maurice Benjamin “Maurie” Smith (1910-1991), well-remembered proprietor of Maurie’s Candies and the Pekin News Agency. The 1978 city directory identifies 515 Court St. as a warehouse or additional space for Smith’s Pekin News Agency. The directories continue to list the 515 Court St. building as a Pekin News Agency warehouse until the 1995 city directory – Smith’s widow Bess sold the building to Brad Barnard in May 1995. Then in the 1996 directory, the building is listed as vacant.
Finally, the 1997 Pekin city directory heralds the arrival of Brad and Debra Barnard’s Salon Renaissance beauty salon, which has operated from 515 Court St. ever since.
