09/24/2026
🤷Throwback Thursday Trivia! Some historic buildings tell the story of one moment in time. Others tell the story of an entire community changing around them.
Built before 1884, the Schilling building is one of the earliest brick structures on Third Street, first appearing on McMinnville’s earliest map as a saloon. During the late 1800s, the saloon served farmers, merchants, and laborers as a gathering place to exchange stories and connect after long days of work. As McMinnville entered a new era, the building changed with the community.
In 1905, John Schilling purchased the property and gave the building its distinctive appearance, adding the decorative parapet and tin pediment that still crowns the façade today. Around the same time, changing attitudes and newly approved prohibition laws transitioned the building from a local watering hole to commercial center.
The space was home to a variety of businesses, including a grocery store and Rutherford’s Variety Store. Families flocked there for affordable treasures: candy, toys, fabric, and household goods. Generations of shoppers remember the excitement of finding something special among shelves filled with everyday necessities before it became a Sears Roebuck in the 1950s.
After decades, the building found new life through restoration in the early 2000s, where it continues to serve downtown McMinnville as a place for dining and hospitality. It reminds us that preservation is not about freezing a place in time—it's about allowing historic places to continue in new ways. From saloon conversations to shopping trips to modern gatherings over shared meals, this building has witnessed nearly 150 years of McMinnville life.
Learn more about these stories and more in the newly reprinted Uncover McMinnville and Stroll publications (available at the CDC, Visit McMinnville, and MDA, and Library).
✨Question?! What Schilling Building restaurant is not only famous for their food, but also for poltergeist activity occurring onsite, including a w**e bottle flying across the room and shattering against the wall, and chairs moving on their own?✨Comment below ⬇
