PHOTO OF THE DAY: TODAY’S ‘MONDAY ON MAIN’

This is this week’s “Mondays on Main” Facebook post made by Heritage Hall Museum & Archives. Here’s the accompanying information: 

This classic building, which stood on Freeman’s Main Street 100 years ago, was the Sugar Bowl, a fruit and ice cream parlor that specialized in confections and other tasty treats. The original was located in two buildings on the site where the Freeman Courier and the north/entrance portion of the Freeman Public Library stand today. 
Although the Sugar Bowl had a relatively short life in Freeman – it was open from 1914 to 1925 – it has a rich history.
We found some historical perspective thanks to J.J. Mendel, who published the Freeman Courier from 1902 to 1960 – and the weekly “Reflections” column in the Courier today, which frequently reprints Mendel’s historical nuggets.
Here is what we learned.
May 7, 1914 
“The Sugar Bowl will open for business on May 15. A. A. Waldner, the proprietor, deserves credit for putting up a neat place as that. He is just putting in a thousand dollar iceless soda fountain and all the fixtures will be of the best kind.”
Aug. 16, 1917 
“If there is a man in our burg who has confidence in this town it’s the Sugar Bowl man. Recently he invested in a $700 popcorn machine that made some almost faint, others thot it was a joke but they all agree now that there is where you can get the real popcorn the best you ever tasted. Nothing but the big, fluffy flakes of the best corn grown; crisp, crackling, clean, popped in a wonderful machine that automatically removes all burnt grains or “bachelors,” and that butters every kernel just right. All without a touch of the hand.”
May 13, 1920 
“The Sugar Bowl likes to have the best in everything. The latest investment is an electric machine for extracting the juice from fresh oranges and lemons. It takes but a few seconds to do it.”
Jan. 26, 1922 
“Four business buildings were destroyed by fire in Freeman Saturday morning. The fire was discovered a little before six in the room at the rear end of the Sugar Bowl in the north building. The room was used for a kitchen. The fire had barely started when the fire alarm was given and the firemen were on the ground in but a few minutes and would have extinguished the fire in no time but they were unable to get water because the five hydrants closest to the fire were frozen and had to be thawed first and after that was done the conflagration couldn’t be controlled anymore and all four buildings burned down to the foundation. 
“The wind came from the south and after the two Sugar Bowl buildings were ablaze it was easy to see that both the Freeman Mercantile buildings will be devoured by the flames. The Sugar Bowl was known all over in this part of the state because it was one of the neatest and cleanest places, very expensive furniture and fixtures, the two fronts and window displays caught the eye of every stranger and we heard many complimentary remarks. The first building north of the two Sugar Bowl buildings was the Freeman Mercantile Co. Furniture Store. The doors were opened and quite a little of the furniture was taken out on the street. The hearse was in a shed at the back end of the buildings and was pulled out on the street and saved. The last building destroyed was the General Merchandise store of the Freeman Mercantile Co. on the corner. Just how the fire started is a puzzle. There was nobody in the buildings during the night and no fire in the kitchen, where the fire started. What caused the hydrants to freeze up is sand in the pipes. The new well made this summer is throwing sand which caused the valves to leak and fill up the hydrants with water.”
Following the fire Andrew Waldner decided not to rebuild.
But, as an account by Ella Waltner Schrag in “Freeman Facts Freeman Fiction,” a book published in 1979 during Freeman’s centennial, the fire wasn’t the end of the Sugar Bowl.
“Since Andrew Waldner had decided not to rebuild, our family became interested. My father (Jonathan Waltner), said that I if I would go in with him 50-50 he would try to buy it … Everything was to be ready by May 1, 1922 to open for business. That was some experience, a bunch of country jiggers trying to be business people. In fall, Lillie (my sister) went back to teaching school. Clara, my other sister, was the bookkeeper and main clerk. Dad was the handyman. I was looking after things in general. In 1924 … Clara married John A. Wipf and we rented the store to Arthur Graber. In 1925, our Dad died. Then Clara and John bought the store, sold the fixtures and moved in with his plumbing and heating (business).”
As longtime Freeman residents likely recall, that was the genesis of the Coast to Coast hardware store that in time expanded from the Sugar Bowl building to the south and was a fixture on Main Street for six decades. 
The Wipf family joined the Gamble hardware franchise in 1934 and switched to Coast to Coast in 1939. Their sons, (Willis and Orville) joined and the business as did Willis’ son, Don. In 1992 the hardware store became True Value. It closed in 2002. The city of Freeman later purchased the property, razed it and built a new public library in the space – along with property to the south. 
Incidentally, in 1923 – one year following the fire – Andrew Waldner changed his mind and decided to rebuild on the lot immediately north of the “new” Sugar Bowl. In December, the Shack Café opened. In 1942 he told it to Tom Kaufman, who renamed it the City Café. In 1972, Dennis Wollman established Wollman Pharmacy in the building. After he moved his expanded business, now Wollman Merchandise Mart to Highway 81 (now the Freeman Shopping Center), the building was used by the Missionary Church (while they were building a new church along Sixth Street), then the EtCetera Shop and eventually the Freeman Courier.
And, a small piece of the Sugar Bowl has been preserved; Willis Wipf (son of Clara Waltner Wipf, who worked at the Sugar Bowl) has created earrings out of the white countertop of the old Sugar Bowl, the place where his parents met and eventually established a hardware store.
We have some of those white earrings in our HHM&A Mercantile. HHM&A is open from noon to 4 p.m. weekday afternoon through April; summer hours begin May 1.