248 River St. N - Lupine Brewery
Built 1906
In March of 1906, E. F. Ziebarth and Thomas Lebvosky advertised for bids from contractors for the erecting of a concrete or a solid brick building, 80x50 feet, two stories high with basement, in the village of Delano. The Delano Eagle reported in May that “E. F. Ziebarth and Thos. Lebovsky have had the plans drawn and have almost completed arrangements for the erection of a building on River Street immediately north of the telephone office. The new block will be of concrete, 50x80 feet two stories high with basement, with all modern improvements. Mr. Lebovsky will occupy his part of the building with his general store and the upper floor as dwelling rooms, while the basement of Mr. Ziebarth’s half will be occupied by Wm Cowle’s barber shop; the first floor by A. W. Kittock & Co’s. hardware store, and the second floor by the Northwestern Telephone Co. This new building will add another nice block to Delano’s row of business houses.”
If you look carefully at the photo, you can see the words “General Store” on the front of the first awning, and a barber pole at the basement entrance.
Thomas Lebvosky was still running his general store business and living in his part of the building when he died in 1932.
Wermerskirchen & Co. purchased the stock of hardware owned by A. W. Kittock in 1910. The company, which was composed of Jacob Wermerskirchen and Peter Entinger of Minneapolis, intended to add more stock and in a short time have a complete line. Both gentlemen had been in business several years.
E.F. Ziebarth also owned the property next to the building, where he operated a farm machinery business. Following the big delivery day of 24 International Harvester Company manure spreaders in October of 1914, the company of Ziebarth and Tomnitz treated their customers “right” by serving a fine dinner in the basement under Mr. Weihe’s hardware store.
The Marshall Wells store moved from its location across from City Hall to this building in 1939, occupying the north half of the building. This photo is from the 1951 DHS yearbook.
Roy Hanson opened his home bakery on Third and Elm in April of 1932, but moved downtown a few months later. In 1946 Hanson’s Bakery was located next to the Marshall Wells store in the south half of the building, as reported in the Mainstreet, a special edition of the Eagle.
In 1965, this building housed a Red Owl Store, which was heavily damaged in the major flooding that occurred that spring.
The Red Owl store had from five to six feet of water standing in front of it in the street and about three feet of water on the main floor.
Several different restaurants have occupied the building since the 1970’s:
Now, in 2021, the building is known as the Lupine Building. Lupine Brewing Company opened in the building after extensive renovation, restoration and remodeling in August of 2015.
