Burton Brothers Hardware Store

Schoolchildren are brought to this two-story commercial building to see a business virtually unchanged for more than a century. It was owned by the Burton family until 1954, when the grandfather of the current owner took over after two decades working behind the counter. Calendars of the 1920s tacked to the wall give the store's telephone number as simply “3.” The counter, cash register, and wooden bins are original. Construction is frame, the exterior swathed in tin-colored galvanized sheet metal, pressed sheets imitating rusticated stone. The facade is a false front, as in a Western town, and is giddily embossed with friezes, swags, and elegant Renaissance-styled candelabra-and-dolphin panels, culminating in a big fleur-de-lis cornice.