108-110-112 Court Square—Constructed about 1915, this building features paired second-story windows, brick corbelling at the cornice, transom windows, and a central stairway between the storefronts. By the early 1930s, Schallhorn Hardware occupied this building. William Frederick Schallhorn, Sr., moved to DeWitt from Indiana to work as a railroad agent. He opened up a hard- ware store on the square to sell products from Sears that came in on the railroad. Schallhorn Hardware was called “one of DeWitt’s oldest and most reliable establishments.” W. F. Schallhorn was also president of DeWitt Bank & Trust, mayor of DeWitt for 10-12 years, and planted the sycamore trees by the old Methodist Church. In August 1938, Schallhorn Hardware moved to the south side of the square next to the Merritt Building at 304 Court Square. All that remains of the old Schallhorn building is an empty lot surrounded by a fence. W. F. Schallhorn, Sr., was John H. Schallhorn’s grandfather. John was elected mayor of DeWitt in 1964 at the age of 24 and remained in office until 1990. After Schallhorn’s moved out of this building, it was home to P. E. Martin’s Grocery, followed by Laron Young’s Grocery. In 1956, Dr. John Hestir and Dr. Nolan Beverly established a medical office downstairs, and Dr. Shelby A. Woodiel opened a dental office upstairs in 1957. Dr. Woodiel took over Dr. E. A. Morris’s dental practice, which had been located upstairs in this building for many years. In 1963 Dr. Hestir and Dr. Woodiel moved to a new clinic at 220 W. Gibson in DeWitt.
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Court SquareRather than being formed by intersecting streets, DeWitt’s court square was designed as a continuous street around a public square with one access street in the middle of each block. The northwest, northeast, and southwest corners have unique lots containing buildings with chamfered corner entrances. The town was platted in such a way that people wouldn’t just pass through the downtown and keep going—the courthouse and square would be your final des- tination. This is an extremely rare layout for a court square—I’ve never seen another town like it.
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