Mammen

The next building going east on Adams Avenue in downtown La Grande is 1212 Adams, currently the home of Country Financial. According to the National Register of Historic Places it was constructed around 1892, but the name of the builder was unknown.

However, upon further research I found that the owners, and very probably the ones who constructed the building, were Gustaves Beugelsdorff and Joseph B. Whiteman. This was a two-story brick structure with the lower floor being divided into two commercial spaces and apartments on the upper floor.

Although there were only two commercial spaces on the first floor, there were many businesses over the years that shared one side or the other, making it nearly impossible to create an exact chronicled list of occupants. For a number of them it served as a business incubator.

The first occupant I could identify, at 1212 1/2, was the Singer Sewing Machine Company with William Baldridge as the agent. This was in 1893 and the company was still there in 1903, but the agent was A.H. Stone.

The City Directory for 1908-1912 showed the business at 1212 Adams as a men’s clothing store owned by A.V. Andrews. For 1908-09, 1212 1/2 housed James R. Smith, jeweler, and in 1912 Emily Wellman was offering millinery, toys and notions for sale.

Another early occupant of 1212 1/2 was Harry T. Love, a jeweler who advertised his shop in 1911 replacing James R. Smith who had moved to California. Harry was born in Pennsylvania and later moved to La Grande where he lived with his wife, Harriett, and stepdaughter, Iva. When the family moved to Salem, G. S. Birnie, who had been working for William Siegrist as a watchmaker, purchased Love’s business and stayed in this location until sometime between 1936 and 1939 according to Robert Bull in “Volume III of Little Bit of This & a Little Bit of That.”

In the late teens through the 1920s the O.K. Barber Shop at 1212 was a busy place. For many of those years the space was shared by other businesses — in 1923 it was Joe Kelly’s cigar and tobacco stand, in 1926-27 Reyneud’s Beauty Shop and 1928 Ruth Reed had her beauty shop at this location.

Other occupants over the years at 1212 included various shoe repair/shine shops including the City Shoe Shop owned by John Burlew alongside Harry’s, where one could have shoes shined or hats blocked. But the most remembered shoeshine shop was that of Lafayette (Lucky) Trice who bought out Burlew in 1947 and established Lucky’s Shine Parlor, which was still in operation in 1961.

Probably the two most interesting individuals involved with 1212 Adams were Joseph B. Whiteman and Lafayette Trice.

Joseph was born in 1854 in Indiana to Abe F. Whiteman, a farmer, and his wife. It appears that Joseph’s mother had died during childbirth, or shortly after, when her son Charles was born in 1859, leaving Abe with nine children to raise. Opportunities in Indiana were not abundant for Joseph, so like many others he headed west. Before leaving Indiana he took young Susan Parks to be his bride. In 1880 they were living in Kansas where Joseph was working as a saloon keeper. By 1900 they were living in La Grande and he was working as a plumber.

Living with Joseph and Susan as a lodger was a single man by the name of Gus Bingdeloff, a shoemaker from Germany. It appears that Gustaves Beugelsdorff had tried to Americanize his name for practical purposes like Census records. Joseph still wasn’t settled in his work and by 1910 he was working as an auto repairman. Then by 1920 he was a tinsmith at the railroad shop and by 1930, at the age of 76, he was a mail carrier. This is all we know about these two men except that Gus purchased Lot 6 in Block 106 of Chaplin’s Addition and he and Joseph had 1212 Adams constructed there around 1892.

Lafayette (Lucky) Trice was born in 1904 in Arkansas to Arthur and Ella Trice. According to his daughter, Gwen, Lucky’s dad worked in logging and in 1923 Lucky, at the age of 19, his father, grandfather and brother arrived by boxcar in Oregon and went to work at Maxville, a town created by the Bowman Hicks Lumber Company. It was there he earned the nickname Lucky because of his skill at playing cards.

In 1933, when Maxville shut down, Trice moved to La Grande. He purchased his shoe shop in 1947 and became a businessman. Later on he started a furnace cleaning business. Lucky was involved in many community activities and was a friend to all. Lafayette (Lucky) Trice died in September 1985.

To learn more about Lucky, see the story at www.oregonhumanities.org/this-land/stories/reaching-back-for-truth/.

Keep looking up! Enjoy!