In its place, the Marion Lumber and Fuel Company building was built at 510 W. Main Street. It was a brick, double bay building allowing vehicles to drive thru and load materials as seen in the accompanying photo.
A.B. McLaren was a Scottish immigrant who arrived in this country as a five year old child with his parents. Following his Scotch father’s occupation of mining, he got involved early on in mining and came to Marion at the turn of the century as Superintenant of the Chicago and Big Muddy Mines just north of Marion. McLaren was an entrepenereal type who was invested heavily in Marion property and business.
I have little information on the management or success of the Marion Lumber and Fuel Company except for directory information and deduction at this point. Since McLaren’s chief interest was in coal its a no brainer to figure out that the company likely sold coal, gas and probably oil in addition to the usual lumber, hardware and paint products.
Intuition also tells me that if this business made it through the depression of the 1930’s in one piece then it must have been a sold business, as many did not.
Directories tell me that the name stayed constant up to World War II in the 1940’s. After the war, it changed to Marion Lumber and Supply Company. This may have had something to do with national energy shortages more than anything else.
The name remained that way up through the 1950’s until the death of McLaren in 1959. I suspect the business closed very shortly after his death because Sam Stotlar bought the closed business and reopened it temporarily under the name Marion Lumber Company in 1963. The name was changed to Bob Stotlar Building Center in 1969 and remains that way to this date in March 2013.
(Data from Goodspeed’s History, 1895; Glances at Life, Homer Butler, Ancestry.com; Marion City Directories; 1989 Sesquicentennial History, WCHS; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 04/18/2013)