DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way back in the 1850s, the U.S. Army had already staked a claim on this very ground — stone and adobe buildings, the kind that meant business, the kind that said somebody with authority had decided this spot mattered.
The Army moved on, as armies do, and the site sat waiting for whoever came next. Turns out, it had to wait until 1904. That's when Dwight Dana Book stepped in.
Born in 1869, a civil engineer by trade, a veteran of the Spanish-American War by experience — Book was a man who'd already seen a few things worth seeing. He bought the property, and then he didn't let the grass grow. By 1906, he had a red brick commercial building erected right here, rising up where those old stone and adobe walls had once stood.
Now, red brick has a way of saying permanence, and Book's building made good on that promise. Attorneys took up office space. Realtors, architects, physicians — the kind of folks who put their names on frosted glass doors and mean it.
The building became a little city unto itself, floor by floor, tenant by tenant. But here's the detail that makes you lean in just a little closer. Down in the basement level, tucked beneath all that professional respectability, was a popular club known as the Night Spot.
Attorneys upstairs drawing up contracts. Somebody downstairs having considerably more fun. Dwight Dana Book lived until 1955, long enough to see what that one decision — buying a piece of ground in 1904 and building something worthy of it — could become.
The U.S. Army had occupied this site once. Book built something that occupied it a whole lot longer.
What the marker says
During the 1850s, the U.S. Army occupied several stone and adobe buildings which stood at this site. Dwight Dana Book (1869-1955), a civil engineer and veteran of the Spanish-American War, bought the property in 1904. He had this red brick commercial building erected in 1906. Attorney's, realtors, architects, physicians and other tenants leased office space here. A popular club called the "Night Spot" was once located in the basement level. (1978)