108 Main Street

One of Geneseo's earliest settlers was Dr. Elias Metcalf, who came here in 1828 and at once began the practice of medicine. In the early nineteenth century doctors in pioneer settlements often engaged in additional occupations. Villages with populations of a few hundred people did not demand the full-time attention of a physician. Dr. Metcalf, associated with his brother, conducted a dry goods store standing where 108 Main Street is today. About the middle of the century, this small one-story frame building was sold to C.O. Beach, another merchant. A bad fire in 1866 destroyed it, along with several others to the north.  Mr. Beach rebuilt a two-story brick block containing eight stores, known in its day as "Commercial Row." Constructed with the then fashionable Italianate detail, the block was the pride of the ever-growing village. Mr. Beach and his partner ran a dry goods and grocery store.  Mr. Beach died in 1893, but his family retained possession of the building.  It was rented for various purposes until 1919 when it was sold to Charles Snath and Richard White.  They partially remodeled it to accommodate their farm machinery business.  In 1926, the Geneseo Gas Light Company purchased the building and made extensive improvements in 1932.  They sold it to Gertrude Nash in 1948 who in 1952 sold it to William Heaman.  It then became the Campus Dairy Bar, run by George Papadikis and later Joseph Diliberto. In 1963, it was purchased by James McDonald for his clothing store, replacing the one located across the street in the Wadsworth Hose Block.