130-year-old Main St. building gets facelift

by Nathan Arneal
Published 1/27/21

When you turn onto North Bend’s Main Street from Highway 30, a shiny new building is going to catch your eye on the east side of the street.

Of course, the building isn’t new at all. In fact, it’s one of North Bend’s oldest buildings and will be celebrating its 130th birthday this year. With a new paint job and several other improvements done by the current occupants, Lodl’s Construction and Cabinetry, 625 Main Street gleams in the winter sun.

The Lodl Construction building once again bears the name of its original owner, Fred Young. Lodls took the name down 27 years ago and recently put the letters back up.

Lodls bought the two-story brick building in 1989 and gave it a new paint job a few years later, but that lost its shine years ago.

“It’s been looking rough,” Marge Lodl said. “Unfortunately, you look at it and you kind of get used to looking at it. It was definitely time to do something.”

Lodls gave it a new brick-red coat of paint with black trim and replaced the old cloth awning that had been beaten by years of wind with a sturdy new black awning.

Several improvements were made inside the building as well. The front room is the process of being redone and will soon feature a conference room.

The top of the building proclaims it as “Fred Young General Merchandise, 1891.”
When the building got its last coat of paint 27 years ago, there were a few letters missing from that name, so Lodls took all the letters down. This time around, Dan Minarick of Steel Creation made three replacement letters, and Fred Young once again took his rightful spot atop 625 Main Street.

Young constructed the building in 1891 for his general store. In 1929 it became an implement store. Starting in 1938 it housed a grocery store or locker plant until Lodls bought it in 1989 and converted it for their construction business.

Marge Lodl said there is a little bit of trim painting that is waiting for a nice day to finish.

“Yeah, we’re happy with way it turned out,” she said. “We should have done it a few years ago.”

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