Eagle/Summit Block

312-314-316-318-320-322 South Summit Street

Known as the Eagle and Summit Block building, this structure is one of the key historic buildings in the Downtown Historic District.

The Eagle Block and Summit Block were twin buildings adjoining each other, both built in 1886 — with the Eagle Block north of the Summit Block.

By 1890, a third building of the same style and structure was added to the south end of the original Summit building.

From the mid-1880s to mid-1920s, many different businesses occupied the two-story stone buildings with a distinctive cast-iron façade on the upper story.

They included a millinery store, tailor, grocery, hardware store, furniture store, electrical supply company, meat market, barber, shoe repair, dry cleaners, bakery and — in the early 1900s — a saloon.

The Peerless Bakery was in business at 318 S. Summit St. from about 1920 until 1940.

The Crystal Barber Shop at 322 S. Summit St. started in 1923 and — as of 2021 — remained in business under that name after having undergone several ownership changes.

The store that remained in business at the Summit Block the longest under the same owner was Duvall’s Pharmacy. It occupied 312 S. Summit St. for 40 years, from 1925 until 1965.

The owner, Ethel Duvall, came to Ark City as a licensed pharmacist in 1914, after graduating from Valparaiso University in Indiana.

The year she moved to Ark City, Duvall bought out the Bunker and Fretz drug store at 215 S. Summit St., known as the Walpex Building and the location of Woolworth’s.

In 1925, Duvall moved her business across the street to the next block south, to 312 S. Summit St.

The business continued operating at the Summit Block location until it announced a “quitting business” sale in 1965.

Since 1935 until her death in 1974, Ethel Duvall also was known as Ethel Duvall Newbern. In 1935, she married Lee Roy Newbern, but her husband preceded her in death; he passed away in 1940.

Another business that occupied the Summit Block for many years was the Davis Mercantile Company, which sold men’s furnishings, clothing and shoes, at 314 S. Summit St. from 1917 to 1936.

By 1948, Western Auto opened a store at that address and continued in business there until the mid-1970s.

 In more recent years, McDonald’s Used Books occupied the 314 space (with an accompanying vacuum store at 316 S. Summit St.) from 2002 until 2019, when the bookstore moved north to 110B S. Summit St. to become Blue Geranium Books and Gifts.

(The vacuum business moved one block north and continues in operation today; following the move, the RooJax Company gift store briefly occupied this space.)

The 314 storefront is now home to a beauty salon, while 312 S. Summit St. has been the location of Meiers Tax Accounting Service for years.

The Coffee Break restaurant at 320 S. Summit St. closed in 2011 after 35 years in business. Breaking Chains Ministries briefly occupied the location at 318 S. Summit St.

A two-part commercial block building with Renaissance Revival, Italianate and Queen Anne features, the Eagle Block and Summit Block building display iron pediments, classical pilasters, cornice treatment, modillions at the cornice and dentil bands.

The upper-story windows are decorated with painted displays of frontier life from the 1800s.