Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Saga of 117 W. Walnut St. continues into 2019
The historic building at 117 W. Walnut St. in Rogers was built in 1898, and today is the home of an Irish pub, the Moonbroch Brewing Company. John Myler, a prominent Rogers builder at the turn of the century, constructed the brick building with its decorative limestone trim around the windows and on the corners. It looks today almost as it did when it was new. The next time you are downtown, study the beautiful and lasting masonry work that Myler created more than 121 years ago.
In January 1899, T.J. Keller’s hardware establishment was the first business to occupy the new store. It carried the famous line of John Deere buggies, cultivators and other farm equipment. Keller’s also made the best harnesses that money and brains could produce, according to an ad in the 1907 Business Men, Home-Seekers, and Farmers Guide and Directory.
Next door at 115 W. Walnut St., Charles Aufderheide established a
furniture store and funeral home in 1899. He sold his business to A.D. Callison and William J. White in 1912. Callison bought out White two years later and expanded the business. He moved the funeral home into the Keller building next door. Callison was an innovator in the funeral business, and in 1917, he brought the first motorized hearse to Rogers. One of the prominent women of Rogers described the event: “Mr. Callison bought an automobile hearse and really
shocked the inhabitants by driving to the cemetery too fast (15 mph). Other new cars would follow the hearse and then came the slower moving horses and buggies with the indignant occupants choking and sputtering because of the churned up dust they had to take.” (Vera Key, 1955 Benton County Pioneer)
Callison operated a paint, wallpaper and picture framing shop on the first floor and the funeral home upstairs. An account in a March 17, 1921, newspaper noted, “The two-story building has been completely remodeled, upstairs and down, to meet the needs of the various departments. The undertaking department is on the second floor and includes a large and well-lighted stock room for caskets,
a room for the work of embalming, a morgue room for the reception of bodies, and a rest room.” Callison operated his funeral home in the building as Callison’s Undertaking Company until 1932, when he move the funeral home to 408 W. Walnut St. He kept the office for the Callison Funeral Home and his Reliable Funeral Benefit insurance company upstairs and his paint and hardware business at 117 W. Walnut St. into the 1940s.
On Oct. 10, 1943, Rogers suffered the worst fire in 30 years when a blaze broke out in the middle of the night in the office of optometrist Dr. Val Koobs. Callison shared upstairs office space with Dr. Koobs, and the fire gutted the entire building, causing more than $35,000 in damages. This was during World War II, and much of the stock was irreplaceable due to war rationing. According to the Rogers Daily News, the fire department
pumped more than 153,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze.
A.D. Callison kept his paint and wallpaper store in the building until the mid1940s. Cy Carney Appliance moved into the building after Callison left and sold appliances — including the famous Maytag wringer washers — for about a decade.
In the early 1960s, Marion and Vivian Bunyard opened their Western Auto Associate Store at 117 W. Walnut St. Western Auto sold auto parts and accessories, furniture, appliances, guns, sporting equipment, bicycles and a multitude of other items. Western Auto was an “L” shaped store with its front on Walnut and the service department on North Second Street, directly behind the Sterling 5 & 10¢ Store on the corner. In 1963, some of the employees included Buddy Wright (recent city alderman), Louis Brewer,
Bill Cunningham, Dennis Lanningham, Dennis Ellis and Gabby Harlan. An ad in the Rogers Daily News on Jan. 18, 1967, featured a sizzler sale special: a Wizard Citation Semi-automatic wringer washer for $99.88 with no money down. What a bargain! Bunyard’s Western Auto was here until the early 1980s. By 1983, Marion Bunyard had opened Bunyard’s Furniture and Appliance Store at 111 N. Second St.
I asked for memories of Western Auto on a Rogers Facebook site and received many responses. Here are a few examples:
Buddy Wright: “I worked at Western Auto for Marion Bunyard from 1958 through 1966.”
Joan Scott White: “My dad bought our swing set from Western Auto. I remember the boxes being so long Dad had to put them through the open windows. He told us they were new
handle bars for his wheelbarrow. My sister and I received our blue Western Flyer bicycle from there as well. That was a huge Christmas.”
James Leslie: “I bought my first bicycle (a Western Flyer) from Western Auto in 1958 when I started carrying newspapers. Have forgotten the price, but I paid it off at $2 per month while collecting about $10 per week from about 50 customers. I’m not sure how much of the $10 was mine. Marion Bunyard always had any parts needed to repair the bicycle.”
After Western Auto vacated the building, it was the home of White’s Auto Store in 1985. Since then this location has been the home of several businesses including Tony C’s Italian Restaurant, the Cafe Santa Fe Mexican Restaurant and the elegant Belle Arti Ristorante and Steak House, the Serendipity Event Center and The Grand at 117 event center.
Now, when I pass the historic structure, I think about the building’s amazing story and the many adventures of the people who used the building as a hardware store, funeral home, appliance store, auto supply store and restaurant. I remember fondly the wonderful times that my family, friends and business associates had there in the 1980s and ’90s when we had many great meals, birthday parties, meetings and business luncheons at Tony C’s and the Café Santa Fe.
Today there is a new chapter in the story of the historic 117 building. In March, the Moonbroch Brewing Company – an Irish pub — opened and is continuing to enrich our historic downtown with new business and new memories.