Year Built: 1895
Architect: Unknown

Our early 1890s engraving shows an elaborate Romanesque Rivival building labeled ‘National Lumber Co.’ on this site, but this handsome design was apparently never built.  Certainly nothing of it can be seen in the small commercial structure that has occupied the site since 1895.  This little building is not without interest, however, especially in its retention of the metal lintel over the storefront and the metal cornice, with fleurs-de-lis on the top corner blocks. 

F. E. Campbell Produce Company was the original occupant of the building, specializing in wholesale poultry, eggs and butter.

Year Built: 1906/1919 (northern 2/3) | 1924 (southern 1/3)
Architects: A. W. Wodds | Fiske & Meginnis

The simple and quiet exterior of the ‘Candy Factory’ downplays the central place- - physically and historically- - that this building occupies in the district.  We can trace its roots (or should we say its foundations) to the H. T. Clarke Drug Company Building of 1887.  The Clarke Building was an ornate Victorian commercial palace, with stone-trimmed first floor, varied windows, and decorated cornice.  H. P. Lau’s wholesale grocery was among the building’s tenants. 

In 1895, the northern two-thirds of the Clarke Building burned to the ground, including Lau’s quarters.  (Hargreaves/Schwarz Building)  A three-story factory for the Gillen & Boney Candy Co. was built on that site in 1906, designed by Alfred W. Woods.  In 1919 Gillen & Booney added a fourth floor to the 1906 factory.  Five years later, the last of the old Clarke Building was rebuilt for the candy company according to plans by Fiske and Meginnis.  They retained some of the old, first-floor stonework including the richly textured stone piers and the stone foundation along ‘P’ Street, but otherwise matched the simpler new building.  Note the wide, recessed entrance on ‘P’ Street, which recalls where a rail spur extended through the factory, delivering pharmaceuticals, groceries and candy-making supplies to a succession of occupants. 

Gillen & Booney- - ‘Good Candy Makers’- -was established in 1895 and became one of the largest manufacturers in Lincoln.  They were capable of producing 35,000 pounds of candy a day.  Two company specialties sounded typically Nebraskan: ‘Golden Rod Chocolates’ and ‘Football Centers.’  An early advertisement offered ‘Advice for 1912- - Eat Good Candy.’ 

Gillen & Booney had difficulty satisfying customers through World Way II due to limited sugar supplies.  Furthermore, they and other candy manufacturers were blamed for the sugar shortage.  Judging from several advertisements at the end of the war years, Gillen & Booney’s disposition may have needed sweetening: ‘Candy is being accused of being the thief that has robbed the national sugar barrel…The public’s verdict should be- - not guilty!’ 

World War II brought similar shortages.  In 1942 Russell Stover Co., unable to operate on its own sugar allotment bought up Gillen & Booney and several other candy factories to acquire their sugar allotments.  Russell Stover’s Lincoln operation became the candy marker’s largest, accounting for 45% of its total production.  900 employees produced one million pounds of candy monthly.  Russell Stover closed its Lincoln plant in 1980 and vacated the seven Haymarket buildings it had occupied.  Today’s ‘Candy Factory, ’ designed by Alfieri Sinclair & Hille, is worth a visit for its sunny atrium.

Year Built: 1906
Architect:  Fiske & Dieman

The next four buildings on the tour are reminders of the Grainger Brothers Companies, one of Lincoln’s largest wholesale grocers and a major presence in Haymarket, occupying the whole west side of 8th Street from ‘O’ to ‘P.’  The old photograph shows the complex, which housed both the Grainger Brothers Co., wholesale grocers, and J. Grainger & Co., wholesale fruit dealers.  The Graingers’ special ‘Nebia’ brand was represented by an elephant with words ‘Good & Great’ underneath.  By 1923 the Grainger companies employed 42 salesman covering five states.  They ceased operations in the mid 1960s. 

In 1906 the Graingers employed Fiske & Dieman to design this five-story, buff brick warehouse at 733-737 ‘P’ Streets.  Built at a cost of approximately $40,000, it became the model for the firms’ subsequent construction at 8th and ‘O’ Streets. Note the finely carved address stones above the first floor piers.  On the middle floors the window bays are recessed, forming simple piers of the principal wall plane, while the top floor caps the façade with smaller, deeply recessed individual windows.  It is a simple but sophisticated design.