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Vintage Life: The Mystery Behind the Sign

News downtown newberry sc | antique furniture stores
Vintage Life: The Mystery Behind the Sign

EuroLux Home Antiques GalleryWe often tell you stories about the renovation of our 1920s vintage bungalow, but I've got a vintage story to tell you today about our buildings on Main Street, Newberry, SC.

In addition to the EuroLux Home gallery at 1409 Main Street (left) we also own 1407 Main Street. This is where Greg fixes computers and cell phones in his business, The Computer Doctor. (The EuroLux gallery is the drop off and pick up point for The Computer Doctor. We're multi-talented here!)

That building has an upstairs loft which has never been renovated, nor used as anything other than non-air-conditioned storage space. When we purchased the building years ago, we planned to renovate, like our near-neighbors the Millers did in my post about Historic Newberry Main Street.

Loft2Here's the loft. The photo is a bit dark because the windows are boarded up and all of the light bulbs were burnt out. I lugged a ladder up and changed them all but it remains pretty dark. It's still is a very cool space and it has a neat story.

We intended to convert it into an upstairs loft apartment while expanding our business into the downstairs.
BUT! The best laid plans… We ended up finding our little vintage bungalow that we’re renovating and since it had a yard for the dogs, we decided that would be a better way to go than the loft. We still plan to renovate the loft in the future but for now let me just tell you the great old story about the building.

Back in the 1930s, Main Street in Newberry was a busy place. I shared some old-timey pictures in this Vintage Life blog post. It was the county seat, had the court house, and was the place to go shopping for all the folks that worked at the three cotton mills in town.

Nails marking 40 feetThere were actually two hardware stores in the same block on Main street, owned by two competing Lominack cousins. Those were Lominack’s Hardware (where EuroLux Home is currently located at 1409 Main Street) and Frank Lominack’s Hardware at 1403 Main Street.

You can still see the numbers on the floor in the EuroLux Home Gallery marking the number of feet for the hardware store's measurements of rope and chain. (The photo at left shows the 40 feet marker.)

Old sign on EuroLuxHome buildingWe've also left the Lominack Hardware painted sign on the back of the building.

The story that I’ve heard said that the two cousins were always trying to one up each other in order to get more business by offering different products and services.

Frank Lominack’s Hardware decided to open a shooting range in the basement in order to corner the market and draw more folks into his hardware store. So the story goes, in November of 1934 a stray bullet hit the dynamite that was also stored in the basement and blew up the building!

You can see more about it in this old article in the Gastonia Daily Gazette.  There was $200,000 of damage. That's a lot of money today but in 1934 it was a huge amount of money!

Loft of store with vintage signWe currently own 1405 Main Street and rent it out to our tenant, Expressions, a hair salon.

That previously 2 story building was occupied by a business called Livingston & Son General Merchandise at the time of the explosion. It was so damaged by the explosion that it had to be rebuilt, but the owner decided to only build it as a one-story building.

Our 1407 Main Street building was built after that business had opened, so the interior wall of 1407 Main Street actually shows the original painted advertisement that was on the exterior of the Livingston& Son building’s 2nd story.

That sure was a long explanation, but otherwise you wouldn’t understand how the advertising came to be on the inside wall of our building!

Today things aren't quite as dramatic in our EuroLux gallery. Even all our cats and dogs play nicely together rather than competing with everyone within our fuzzy family. And I'm very relieved that Greg's other business in the building is The Computer Doctor… NOT a shooting range!

downtown newberry sc | antique furniture stores
Aimee @ EuroLux Home

Aimee owns EuroLuxHome.com with her husband and best friend, Greg. With over 20 years' experience in acquiring and selling French Antique Furniture, she is very knowledgeable about furniture styles and how they are influenced by historical events. Aimee has shipped antique furniture and antique furniture reproductions to all 50 States and over 50 foreign countries. Subscribe to this blog for articles about antique furniture construction methods, style trends and even repair tips. Check out our YouTube channel!