W. A. Gilcher Building

William H. Gilcher opened his first sheet metal shop in 1907. Most commercial build­ings used sheet metal at that time as the building material of choice. The history of the Gilcher building that we see today is not unlike that of many cabins. Once a one-story shop housing Gilcher’s sheet metal business, the building was expanded with the addition of a second story sometime in the 1920s. The sheet metal-clad building at one time fronted both 2nd and 3rd Avenues, but gradually the 2nd Avenue portion disappeared. Today, the remaining 3rd Avenue facade represents the last vestiges of a commercial style popular since the late nineteenth century.