05/31/2026
Main Street's Changing Scene
The "Wild Side" of Main Street: the Post Office Lot in the 1930s
Looking north toward Main Street, about 1935. In the foreground was the last (at that time) strip of undeveloped land along Main Street, and coincidently the proposed site (in 1936) of the new Beacon Post Office. Located just east of the old trolley barns near South Chestnut Street, this lot on the south side of Main Street was then a sunken, overgrown field with piles of debris scattered about. Just some 20 years earlier, though, the same area was a popular community gathering spot, with a bandstand and sandlot ball field.
Circuses and carnivals would set up near there. And, according to city historian Edwin Corwin writing in the 1950s, President Theodore Roosevelt once had made a campaign speech in this very field in the early 1900s. Back to the photo: in the background is Sorensen's garage on the right (now Veterans Place), and the Dillon House hotel (recently Citizens Bank) in the center. The only building in this picture still standing today is the "Triangle Garage" and James Palen's Auto Sales (now an Islamic Center) to the left of the Dillon House.
COPYRIGHT
Beacon Historical Society Newsletter January 2008
By Robert J. Murphy
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