N. P. Smith Pioneer Hardware Store

Description

The N. P. Smith Pioneer Hardware Store is a historic commercial building in Bend, Oregon, United States. The structure was built in 1909 by Nichols P. Smith, a Bend businessman. The two-story building originally housed a hardware business on the ground floor with family quarters on the second floor. The building is located on the Northwest Wall Street in downtown Bend. It has been in continuous use as a commercial building since it first opened. Today, the Smith Hardware Store is the only wood-frame structure that remains in downtown Bend. Because of its importance to the history of Bend, the Smith Pioneer Hardware Store is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Nichols SmithAt the age of 34, Nichols Paul Smith came to Central Oregon to help survey the Bend town site for Alexander M. Drake, owner of the Pilot Butte Development Company. Smith worked as a surveyor and carpenter, helping to establish the Bend community. He built a house near the Deschutes River in the area that is now the Drake Park Neighborhood Historic District. In 1903, Smith and his wife, Cora Bell, opened a hardware store on the east side of Wall Street near the center of downtown Bend.In 1909, Smith built a new store across the street from his original location with an apartment upstairs so he could be close to his business. Smith's new store sold a wide range of household good including stoves and butter churns. He also sold building materials, farm equipment, and hunting and fish supplies. When automobiles began to appear in Bend, Smith was the first businessman to sell gasoline to motorists. When the Great Northern and Union Pacific railroads opened routes into central Oregon in 1911, a building boom began in Bend, and Smith’s business prospered. Smith retired from the hardware business around 1930.