Fourth in a series on Brandon’s historic buildings
BY JAMES PECK
For 136 years, one iconic two-story brick building by the upper waterfall in Brandon’s downtown has survived a number of disasters—floods, fires, and even an explosion—that took down the buildings surrounding it.
Located at what is now 31 Center Street, it is now occupied by Blue Moon Clothing & Gifts, owned and operated by Ellen Walter. But many in town remember it as LaDuke’s Restaurant. In 1976, along with 244 old buildings in Brandon, including much of downtown Center and Park Streets, it was placed on the National Historic Register (NHR) as part of the Brandon Village Historic District.
When it was built in 1888, it was viewed as unique to the Central Street row of stores and businesses, most of which were built in wood with peaked roofs, like residences. The local paper, The Brandon Union, praised its Queen Anne architecture: “it marks a new architectural era for Brandon, it being the only absolutely modern style of building here.”
Only 17 feet wide and 26 feet deep, it was somehow shoehorned in between a wooden furniture store to the north and the brick three-story engine room of the former Howe Scale shop. There hadn’t been any buildings at all there in front of the upper waterfall until the brick engine room was built around 1857 by Howe to run the machinery to make their scales in their main building further south on the east side of Central. The wooden two-story furniture store to the north itself was actually moved there in 1884 from its original spot just behind the Methodist Church on Franklin Street where it was built in 1876 by the Parish & Serviss Furniture outfit.
The man who had the new thin building erected was Frank E. Briggs, then a prominent Brandon mover and shaker in town along with his four brothers. Only 43 years old, Frank and his brother Charles had operated another very successful furniture shop on Central Street about where the Brandon Artist Guild building is today since 1873. Another brother, George Briggs was a prominent lawyer and partner of future Vermont governor Ebenezer Ormsbee in their office then located on the second floor of the Conant Block, today the office of attorney Jim Leary. A third brother, Sumner Briggs, ran the Briggs Carriage Shop, now The Bookstore, at the top of what became Briggs Lane.
Frank Briggs built the new thin brick building for his office, which was on the second floor. The architect was Francis Flint who also did the woodwork in the interior. The mason who built the foundation and did the brickwork was Roscoe Sanders, who later built the brick firehouse by Town Hall in 1888 and the Hotel Brandon in 1892, which became the Brandon Inn. Sanders always used the best Ira lime in his mortar, a fact that would save the building a few times.
The building shared the thick brick wall on the south with the engine room building. Frank Briggs was a busy man; besides his hardware and real estate interests, he was cashier of the First National Bank, President of the Brandon Electric Company, and was town representative for a few years.
Briggs rented out the first floor first to the drug store of George Crossman, who was there until 1892 when the town’s first telephone exchange was installed there.
Explosion
The building escaped its first disaster in August of 1892, when the boiler in the electric light company only 30 feet away blew out the south wall of the steam engine building and one man was killed. Frank Briggs himself narrowly escaped by minutes.
In 1892, Frank ran into financial and health difficulties, filed for insolvency, then died in 1893 from an assault in New York City. All his downtown holdings were sold, including his office building for $1,200 to Edgar O. Cool.
Cool would own it for 32 years, first leasing to the Home Bakery, then to a number of hat shops or millineries.
Floods
The Neshobe had flooded a number of times before the building was built, most notably in the Great Flood of 1877, but then there were no buildings in that crucial spot. In 1897, and again in 1914 and 1927, the river ran across Central Street, but the foundations held for Briggs’s building and its two neighbors.
1918, 1922 Fires
In 1918, a fire destroyed the southernmost buildings on the east side of Center Street including the bank corner and part of Park Street. It threatened, but did not harm, the 33 Center Street building.
In 1922, a fire started only two buildings south and again spared the building thanks to the work of the Dunmore Hose Company.
In 1925, Clarence Bishop, the “Dollar Dress Man,” bought the building from Cool and ran his popular drycleaning shop there for seven years. He never raised the price of a dress from one dollar.
In 1932, Jack Edgar, a Scottish immigrant, set up the first restaurant, Jack’s Lunch, in the building, leasing it for fourteen years up until 1946. While he was there, two more disasters threatened the building.
1938 Flood
In September of 1938, floods devastated most of Vermont. In Brandon, the Neshobe overflowed below the falls and tore through Jack’s Lunch, Memoe’s Hardware, the First National Store, and White’s Restaurant. Windows were shattered and the sidewalks and pavements were smashed and cracked, but all the buildings survived.
1943 Fire
Almost exactly five years after the flood, the Great Brandon Fire destroyed two wooden buildings south of #31 and damaged the building just south of the brick one next to Jack’s.
Jack’s Lunch kept operating through the war years, then sold in 1946 to George Farr, who changed the name to the Wagon Wheel. Farr, in turn sold to Frank LaDuke, a 58-year-old dairy farmer and his son Matt, 34, a decorated WWII veteran.
1950 Fire
On April 19, 1950, a huge fire destroyed the three buildings to the south of LaDuke’s, but LaDuke’s building was again saved, even though the adjoining three story brick building (the old Howe Scale engine room) right next door was burnt to the ground.
Frank and Matt had removed much of the furnishings from LaDuke’s as a precaution.
Now there was a vacant lot to the south overlooking the falls, 30 feet wide along Center Street. That lot was never built on, but the other buildings were, mostly later that year, by the new owner Clifford Matott, this time in brick. His name is still on the brick building at 25 Center Street, now Carr’s Florist and Gift Shop.
Frank LaDuke passed in 1961 and his son Matt a year later, leaving Matt’s wife Catherine to run LaDuke’s herself. In the 50s and 60s, it was known as a workingman’s bar where men could go looking for a fight. In the 70s, under Catherine’s management, and that of her children, Patty and Matt, Jr., the place mellowed, becoming more of a pub for men and women, where you could get the best burgers and fries in the state.
1979 Fire
As though there hadn’t been enough fires on the east side of Center Street, in September of 1979, the Market Falls Emporium next door at 33 Center Street sustained a heavy fire on its second floor. LaDuke’s was again evacuated. This time the restaurant sustained smoke and water damage, but quickly made repairs. The Emporium, then home of the Samurai Sub Shop, was rebuilt, but lost its second floor.
Patty LaDuke sold the 31 Center building in 1989, ending 40 memorable years of LaDuke’s in town. After LaDuke’s, the building continued as a bar/restaurant/pub, first as KD’s Grill & Pub, then the Watershed Tavern.
Tropical Storm Irene
The most recent threat to the building came on August 28, 2011, when a monster storm hit Vermont, again raising the Neshobe River below the falls into a raging torrent. This time, water poured over Center Street and the Brandon House of Pizza (BHOP) building next door, which was lifted off its foundation and ended up twenty feet into the street. It was demolished a week later.
Again, the brick building at #31, now called the Watershed, survived, likely thanks to Roscoe Sander’s strong Ira lime foundation.
The BHOP lot was now empty, and the town smartly installed a $2.4 million overflow culvert under the street there (2/3 funded by FEMA) that has since avoided a number of floods, one as bad as Irene in 2017.
Today, Blue Moon Clothing and Gifts occupies the oldest surviving building on the east side of Center Street, built in 1888 by Frank Briggs. It proudly stands by itself, with beautiful Kennedy Park to its right and the meeting table for the men’s daily coffee klatch above the culvert on its left. Let’s hope its luck holds out going forward, as it truly represents the epitome of Brandon Strong.
