Kewanee's historic Butterwick building goes down; Moore Tires expansion to bring jobs

Downtown Kewanee lost another piece of history this week, as the Butterwick Building was demolished.

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The demolition of the building, which had stood at Third and Chestnut streets since 1887, made way for an expansion of the Moore Tires facility in the 300 block of West Second Street.

Moore Tires had earlier acquired the building from the Kewanee Historical Society, which operated its museum in the Butterwick. The company also acquired the property at the northwest corner of Second and Chestnut streets which had been a city parking lot.

Moore Tires spokesman Matthew Wheeler said, “We’re bringing that (Butterwick Building) down and we’re rebuilding an all-new facility” on the site.

Wheeler said the company’s expansion plans also include adding more stalls onto the east end of the existing service building.

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Moore Tires has also acquired the former Boiler Room bar property across Chestnut Street from its main facility, and is using that site for storage, Wheeler said.

A major concern surrounding the demolition of the Butterwick Building is preservation of the two murals on the south side of the building. The first mural, painted by Dave Washburn, depicted the growth of Kewanee into an industrial center; the newer mural, created by the Walldogs organization, commemorated the great downtown Kewanee fire of 1942.

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Both are gone now, but Moore Tires had them photographed so that they can be reproduced elsewhere downtown.

Wheeler pointed out that Moore Tires is one of the few businesses that can sell and service tires for cars, semi trucks and farm equipment.

“We do all three aspects of the business,” he said. “Not many do it.”

The variety of customers makes the company’s job “demanding and diverse,” Wheeler said.

As the company has expanded in Kewanee, it has added new employees.

“It’s an exciting time for us,” Wheeler said. “The community has really helped us build this way.”

Butterwick's history

Kewanee historian Larry Lock provided this history of the Butterwick Building:

The first building on the site was a wooden structure built in 1868. That building was torn down, and the new building was put up, in 1887.

The Butterwicks operated a hardware store in the building. That business closed in 1965.

For the next couple of years, the Kewanee Youth Coordinate operated a youth center on the second floor of the building. Cages where “go-go girls” danced were still in the building when it was demolished.

In the early 1970s there was a nightclub on the building’s second floor.

Then, in 1976, the Kewanee Historical Society was formed. The society’s main purpose at the time was to buy a building and create a museum of Kewanee history.

The Historical Society bought the Butterwick Building the next year. With items from his personal collection and other exhibits donated by local residents, Bob Richards, along with his wife Marcella and a number of volunteers from the community, created the museum. The museum eventually expanded from the ground floor into the second floor.

In 2002, Historical Society members voted to change the name of the museum to the Bob and Marcella Richards Museum.

In 2020, the former Vogue building at Second and Tremont streets was acquired by the Historical Society, and the museum’s collection was moved there. Tha museum opened in its new space last summer.