Fire swept through this block in 1915 destroying all the wood-frame buildings between Stonewall Hall on the west and the F. R. Merk building on the east. Originally this site was home to a small, wood-frame, false-front building. Hellman & Co. clothing store located here in 1865-66, Poznansky and Rosenstein Dry Goods store in early 1867, and Schiller’s Clothing Emporium in 1867. Eastern European immigrants Poznansky, Rosenstein, and Schiller all belonged to a close-knit Jewish community that moved on as Virginia City’s economy slowed in the late 1860s. The building likely sat vacant for much of the 1880s and 1890s, but a saloon occupied the site by 1904. After the 1915 fire, Elbridge Smith built this modest, cream-colored brick commercial building and opened an electric appliance shop. Smith was an electrical engineer in the mining industry and owned a ten-stamp mill in Williams Gulch. In the 1930s, Charles Goldsmith ran a jewelry store here, and the Miner’s Café opened in the late 1950s. The building has been home to the Virginia City Café since the early 1970s.