Home to a tavern for over 90 years.
This one-story 30 by 90-foot building at 414 1st was erected about 1900.
What was here before? There was a small wood-frame building which had been occupied by a dry goods grocery, meat market, millinery shop, and a bakery with lunch counter.
The first tenant of the new brick building appears to be Houck & Monk general merchandise store. Louis Houck operated a very successful business, developing it into the first true department store in town. He also served on the city council and as mayor of Cheney.
The brick building we see today served Houck & Monk until 1907, when having outgrown their quarters, they purchased the two-story building next door (416 1st) in order to expand.
Partner, Peter Monk departed in 1909 to open his own clothing and dry goods store down the block at 404 1st. Houck’s Department store sold clothing, shoes, housewares, furniture, and other goods until his death in 1916 at the age of 55.
The Blue Ribbon Bakery & Restaurant followed for a few years before Alex Huse moved his grocery business into the space around 1925. Huse’s Red & White Grocery moved down the block to 420 1st about 1934.
Sliding into the space from next door came Rubey Kelly’s tavern. Kelly’s was a fixture on main street at this location for the next 36 years.
Kelly kept his cigar and tobacco shop separate from the tavern for a time in a space that later became known as 414 1/2 1st. Some of the long-term tenants of that small office space were Victor “Pete” Wilson Insurance and Ivan Clemmons real estate.
Rubey Kelly sold the tavern to Carl Rosenzweig, Sr., and Lite Barton in 1938. He passed away in 1941 having been one of Cheney’s businessmen since arriving in town in 1902 as manager of the Cheney Hotel before opening his cigar shop in 1904. Other names associated with Kelly’s Tavern include Ted Lightly and Warren and Frank Moss. Moss was finally granted a city license to allow dancing on the premises in 1964.
Kelly’s was known as a cowboy bar when Tom Showalter purchased it in 1972. He added Thursday night music creating more of a melting pot of Cheney folks, from old-timers, college students and faculty, and a more diverse cross-section of community residents.
In 1993, he expanded into the former 412 building and a couple years later bought the building on the other side (416) for further expansion.
Showalter owned, sold, and took back Showalter Hall, also known as Showies Tavern operating it for about 30 years. He sold the tavern to Mike and Kim Hartman in 2001.
The renamed Eagle’s Pub had Kim Gainer Hartman behind the bar. She was “mom” to the many young regulars until her sudden death in 2018. The Hartmans continued the Thursday night music tradition, along with trivia night and karaoke. They also added more pool tables, air hockey, ping pong, shuffleboard and 13 televisions, including an 8-foot projection TV.
Along with all the other taverns and pubs, they suspended activities in March 2020 due to the Corona virus pandemic, but as conditions improved, they first returned with take-away pub food orders and as students and residents returned to social activities, so have the pub’s activities come back.
Joan Mamanakis
