Time Machine: The Kendall Building

One of the premier arts venues in Marion started its 123-year-old life as a hardware store.

It all started when Albert and Sarah Higley Kendall moved to Marion from Connecticut in the 1800s. Their son, Wellington Jerome Kendall, was born in May 1851 in a big house on Ninth Avenue. He would grow up to build the Kendall Building at 1064 Seventh Ave., the home for the past 25 years of the Campbell Steele Art Gallery.

It was Albert Kendall who turned his wagon-making business into a large hardware store and tin shop at that location. When Wellington finished school, he began helping with the business.

Albert built a new brick store in 1874, but when his health began to fail, responsibility for the store fell on the younger Kendall's shoulders.

When Albert died in 1877, Wellington Kendall decided to get out of the hardware business. He retained ownership of the building but sold the stock to Robert Smyth, who operated the store until 1888 as Toms & Smyth Hardware.

Wellington Kendall served on the Marion City Council and developed an interest in real estate, building many houses in Marion. He was a director of the Linn County Building and Loan Association that organized in 1886, and he served as an agent of the United States Express Co.

1894 MARION FIRE

In 1893, after the hardware store had been vacant for five years, Kendall decided to reopen it.

He went to St. Louis in August to buy new stock. A week later, he was back in Marion papering and painting the store and stocking the shelves, with an opening set for Sept. 10.

Less than a year later, the store and the building would be destroyed by fire.

The fire in the early morning hours of Aug. 3, 1894, started in the Daniels gas and electric plant in the middle of the block. Flames quickly spread to 17 businesses, destroying many of them, including the Kendall Building, where the hardware store was on the first floor and the Gray & Haas law firm on the second.

The Kendall building's loss was put at $7,000 and the loss of contents at $9,000. (That's $180,000 and $232,000 in today's dollars.) Kendall had $6,000 in insurance.

FIRE'S TOLL ON HEALTH

While Kendall rebuilt, the hardware store was housed in a building west of the park. The law firm found temporary quarters in a doctor's office on North 10th Street.

The new Kendall Building was built in 1894, and Kendall began moving into his new hardware store in February 1895. But the stress of the setback had taken a toll on his health.

In May 1896, he boarded a train for Excelsior Springs, Mo., where he stayed for a month, taking advantage of the mineral springs there.

When he returned, he sold the hardware business, retaining ownership of the building. He planned to move to a different climate but died in August at age 45.

Kendall, who had married Emma Braucht in 1873, had three children, Alberta, Karl and Ralph.

Karl, born in 1881, was still in high school when his father died. He graduated from business school and worked for First National Bank in Marion.

Four years later, Karl went on a hunting and fishing vacation to North Dakota with friends. The men decided to buy a lumber and coal business there, and Karl stayed behind to run the business.

When he returned to Marion in 1907, the hardware business was in bad shape. He bought it and became his father's successor, improving the store year by year. The hardware store would stay in the Kendall family until 1957.

NEW OWNERS

After Karl died, Galen McDougall, who had clerked in the store for 20 years, and Norville Olson, a Cedar Rapids hardware store manager, bought the store. They ran it until 1971, when Don and Lois Anderson took over and renamed it Marion Hardware. Tom and Linda Newbanks bought the business in 1977. closing it in 1981 because of competition from chain retailers.

AFTERLIFE IN ART

The building's first use as an arts center came in July 1982, when it provided display space for a three-day arts fair sponsored by the Marion Creative Events Council.

The building was renovated and in December became the new location for Midwest Office Products & Furniture. When that company went out of business in 1989, the Friends of the Marion Carnegie Library briefly used the space for a book sale.

In January 1990, Ann and David Shogren of Blairstown bought the brick building and began renovations to turn it into an art academy and gallery. Ann Shogren applied gold leaf to molding around the 14-foot-high ceiling in an effort to retain the building's original design.

In September 1991, the Shogrens sold the gallery to Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele, scene designers at Theatre Cedar Rapids.

CAMPBELL STEELE GALLERY

The Campbell Steele Gallery opened soon after that, with a grand opening in the spring of 1992. The first floor was a retail art gallery and also provided a stage for Liars Theatre, a professional troupe Campbell founded with local actors. The second floor became Steele's art studio and home for the couple and their three children.

The gallery-theater pairing was highly successful, with Liars' patrons often turned away for lack of space.

Campbell almost moved the theater to the larger NAPA Auto Parts store nearby, but difficulties with that move led him to change his mind.

Instead, Campbell began planning revisions for the performance space at the gallery, which could seat fewer than a hundred people.

The solution to expanding the theater's audience came in a joint effort with KCRG-TV9 and Iowa Public Television. Live shows were staged each month, and the taped shows were seen regularly on IPTV.

Concurrently, Campbell and Steel were a driving force in starting the acclaimed Marion Arts Festival in 1992.

NEW OWNERS

Campbell and Steel announced recently they had sold the 123-year-old Kendall Building to Dennis and Carrie Mahoney. The Mahoneys, who paid $500,000 for the building, take possession Sept. 1. They plan to keep it as a music and arts venue, with a pub on the first floor and space for art and Pilates classes on the second floor.

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