Everitt Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you want to talk about the bones of a town, you start with the buildings that went up first, before the dust had even settled on the streets. The Everitt Building in Edinburg is one of those.

Completed in 1910, it stands as one of the earliest commercial ventures in the whole townsite. And the man who built it, John Closner, born in 1853 and gone in 1932, was not just some contractor passing through. He was a founder of the townsite itself.

So when Closner put up this building, he wasn't just raising walls. He was staking a claim on what Edinburg was going to be. Now, the first tenant to walk through that door was the Reverend W.

O. Miller, and here's a detail worth savoring: the good Reverend ran a hardware and machinery store. Not a chapel.

Not a Sunday school. Hardware and machinery. Make of that what you will.

Then the years rolled on, and when World War I came calling, the building answered. It was used as a Red Cross workshop during that war, which tells you something about how a community leans on its sturdy old structures when the times get heavy. By 1920, E.

M. Everitt acquired the property, and he put it to work primarily as a grocery store. The building kept on, tenanting its way through history, hosting the Masonic Lodge and the Golden Jersey Creamery among its many occupants over the years.

Different purposes, different people, same walls. That's the thing about a well-built building in a young town. It outlasts the ambitions of any single owner and just keeps showing up for whoever needs it next.

The Everitt Building is an Edinburg landmark, and the marker says it plain: it stands as part of the city's early economic history. Not a relic. A foundation.

What the marker says

One of the earliest commercial ventures in Edinburg, this building was completed in 1910 by John Closner (1853-1932), a founder of the townsite. Its first tenant was the Rev. W. O. Miller, who operated a hardware and machinery store. During World War I, it was used as a Red Cross workshop. In 1920 the property was acquired by E. M. Everitt, who used the building primarily as a grocery store. Among the building's numerous other tenants were the Masonic Lodge and the Golden Jersey Creamery. An Edinburg landmark, the structure stands as part of the city's early economic history. (1983)