History
The building, consisting of two store fronts, was erected by Ray McKenzie in 1900. The H.C. Pitney Variety Store occupied the property, under various owners, from 1911 until 1920. H.C. Pitney owned the store from 1911 until 1914, when he sold it. During his first period of ownership, Pitney employed Jack Reagan as a clerk, the father of 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan. While Jack Reagan was employed by Pitney Ronald was born in the apartment over a tavern building across Main Street from the Variety Store. After Pitney sold the store in 1914 the Reagans left Tampico.
In 1919 Pitney returned to ownership of the Variety Store and Jack Reagan returned at the same time to work for him. Beginning on August 25, 1919 the Reagan family occupied the apartment above the commercial portion of the building. After Pitney closed the store the Reagans vacated the premises in December 1920 and moved to Dixon, Illinois.
Read more about this topic: H. C. Pitney Variety Store Building
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)