Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles profiling historic buildings in Brush. Some of the information for the stories has been obtained from a Brush Historical Survey that was commissioned in 2002 by the Brush Chamber of Commerce. As part of the survey, 51 historic properties in the downtown area of Brush were researched for their historic and architectural details by the Cultural Resource Historians in Fort Collins.
The year was 1920.
In downtown Brush the Emerson Theater showed a different movie every several days featuring movie stars of the day including Douglas Fairbanks in “He Comes Up Smiling,” Charlie Chaplin in “A Day’s Pleasure” and Silvia Braemer in “Dawn.” The cost for a movie was 20 or 40 cents.
Down the street from the Emerson on the corner of Clayton and Edison, which now houses Shooter’s Saloon, was the Ryland and Groves men’s clothing store. Based on ads appearing in the Morgan County Republican newspaper published in Brush, the store appeared to be making a name for itself through its frequent and eye-catching ads, with a new ad appearing every week or so.
According to the Brush Historical Survey, the two-story commercial building that housed Ryland and Groves was built around 1903.
In the building’s early years Nelson’s Mercantile was located in the north half of the store, while the south half was eventually occupied by Ryland and Groves, described as a clothing and gent’s furnishings/haberdasher.
According to the survey, John R. Ryland, also known as J.R., and Groves were both expert tailors and their establishment was Brush’s only complete menswear store. Their ads were often quirky with one ad stating in bold letters “Going somewhere? Decide. Lay out a course and then follow it. Let nothing stop you. That’s the way we do things. This clothing store subscribes to that idea.”
The ads describe the store as “Ryland and Groves, your surest store.” Another ad shows how some things haven’t changed in 90-plus years later. The ad is titled “Why Men Like to Buy Here” and states that “men don’t enjoy shopping around from store to store.”
In addition to being a business owner, the survey says that Ryland was a “notable civic booster in Brush.” He was the founding member and first president of the Brush Civic Club, organized in 1922 and was instrumental in establishing the Brush Improvement Company, which built Memorial Park.
Although long-time resident Miriam Buckmaster said she has no personal memories of Ryland and Groves she said her parents did. She also said that stories from that time indicate that the local businessmen had “a lot of fun with one another” and had friendly competitions such as imaginary contests. She said Charlie Starr, who was a long-time barber in Brush, shared a story with her about a prank he played on J.R. Ryland.
During the Christmas holiday merchants put up decorated Christmas trees outside of their buildings. One day an old sheepherder came in off of the summer months and came to Starr for a haircut and shave. He told Starr that the town sure looked great and so wonderful with all the Christmas trees.
Starr told the man that the trees were free and that he could take one. He said, in particular, the Ryland store wanted to give them away. Starr told the man he should take the tree at night. The next day J.R. Ryland marched over to Star’s barber shop where Starr relayed the story about the sheepherder. J.R. was said to have laughed about it.
Buckmaster said growing up in Brush she spent a lot of time downtown as her family lived close by and her mother had her run errands downtown, including to one of the multiple grocery stores that existed at the time such as Norgrens and Woodwards.
Her grandfather also had a mercantile store in the Von’s building. She remembered when she was very little going to stay in the apartment above her grandfather’s store because Santa Claus was going to visit her house. That spring Buckmaster said she was surprised when she found Santa’s boots and a red coat in the basement and ran and told her mother that Santa had left them there.
One of Ryland and Groves employees was Alec Lebsock and, at an undetermined point in time, most likely in the 1930s, Alec and his wife Anna purchased the store and changed the name to Lebsock’s Clothing Store. Buckmaster’s brother-in-law Dale worked for Lebsock when he came back from World War II and helped open and operate a Lebsock’s store in Akron.
Buckmaster said Butch Flayer, a coach at the high school, worked on the weekends for Lebsocks and also previously for Ryland.
According to the survey, Lebsocks owned the business for many years before selling it in the 1970s to John Bloom, who worked for Lebsock. In 1981, the building was sold to Jewel and Rueben Ewert who continued to operating a clothing store and also a wedding apparel store known as J&R Ewert’s until the mid 1990s.
The building was then utilized for a number of different businesses, including the 19th Hole Golf Shop and Downtown Duds. From 2004 to 2013, Jay Hall owned the building and operated the main building as Brush Hallmart, a second hand store. Hall said there are a number of different shops in the building, and for a couple of years one of those was a book store.
In 2013, Mario Palombo purchased the building from Hall and in the summer of 2014 opened and currently operates Shooter’s Saloon. Palombo said he spent a year looking in both Fort Morgan and Brush for just the right building for his saloon. Palombo said he liked the look, character and history of the building.
As for its significance as it relates to the National Register of Historic Places, the survey states that it is historically significant for its association for Brush’s downtown commercial growth and the town’s socioeconomic development. The building also is architecturally significant as a locally important example of a two-story, early 20th century, commercial building.
Due to some loss of integrity and modifications over the years, the survey says the building probably does not qualify for individual listing with the National Register, but would qualify for the National Register as a contributing resource within a possible downtown Brush National Register Historic District, which has not yet been established.
