Demolition will bring Emerald Knights history to an end

The last intact block of “automobile row” in Cedar Rapids and a visible reminder of the city's musical past will soon be relegated to history.

Lagniappe Investments plans to raze 706 and 712 Second Ave. SE, buildings that in recent years served as the Home Appliance Center and a hall for the Emerald Knights Drum & Bugle Corps.

Demolition of nearly the entire block could begin as soon as Monday.

Tom Slattery, authorized representative for Lagniappe, would not say why the site is being cleared.

Earlier this year, Lagniappe and Zydeco Investments, which own most of the block between First and Second avenues SE and Seventh and Eighth streets SE, offered to sell the property to the city for $2.6 million, as the site for a new library. The City Council has since selected the TrueNorth site, next to Greene Square Park, for the library.

The Emerald Knights block also has been suggested as a possible location for a new fire station.

Home Appliance, Jim's Tune-Up and Stained Glass Gallery all relocated in the past year, leaving the block vacant.

Mark Stoffer Hunter, an expert in Cedar Rapids history, said architecturally, the buildings are not significant, but the block is important to Cedar Rapids history.

“It's the one block of downtown Cedar Rapids that hasn't changed in 50 years,” he said.

Automobile row was the common name for the area, which stretched along Second Avenue SE.

The Handler Motor Co. car dealership, which became prominent on the corner, was one of numerous automotive businesses that lined the street when it served as part of the Lincoln Highway. The highway passed through Iowa on its route from New York to California.

Stoffer Hunter said three mansions were on the block at the turn of the 20th Century.

As the Lincoln Highway was routed onto Second Avenue around 1920, businesses replaced homes along the route.

“They couldn't build these car dealerships fast enough,” Stoffer Hunter said. Garages and service stations also were quickly erected to serve the vehicles that used the route.

“These were not designed to be elaborate buildings,” he said, citing concrete slab floors and modest brick fronts.

By the 1930s, Barron Motor Supply set up shop at 706 Second Ave. SE, with McKibben Motor Co. at 712 Second Ave. SE and Bennett Tire & Battery at 700 Second Ave. SE.

City directories show Handler Motor Co. was established at 712 Second Ave. SE by the late 1930s; the business later expanded on the same block.

Decades later, the Handler dealership closed when the Emerald Knights were looking for a place to call home.

The corps had used the basement of City Hall for rehearsal and storage space since 1965 and operated bingo games at the downtown Montrose Hotel, said Matt Daugherty, a past member and instructor of the corps.

The Emerald Knights board signed a lease for the Handler building in 1979 and the space was transformed into a practice facility.

“The hall allowed us to grow,” said Daugherty, 51, now a high school music teacher in Florida.

Members no longer had to wait for someone to unlock City Hall when the corps returned from competitions in the wee hours of the morning and they finally had a telephone, he said.

Previously, calls were referred to the director's home phone.

Emerald Knights used the building for bingo after the unit stopped fielding a corps in 2001. The group gave up the bingo license in 2004.

“The hall had its shortcomings, but overall, it was a big blessing to us,” Daugherty said. “It allowed us to exist and to serve the kids of Cedar Rapids.”