Ben Holladay’s Overland Stage opened here in 1864 with stages arriving and departing from this site for connections all over the West and the States. Bought out by Wells Fargo and Company in 1866, the office also housed the telegraph. Thirty years later, rail travel had eclipsed stage travel, so the telegraph office moved two doors east. In 1899, Simeon Buford, owner of the 1878 brick grocery store on the left and the matching 1886 grocery warehouse on the right, demolished the office building to expand his grocery business. His new connector building originally represented a modern store design compared to its older neighbors. Its classic “iron-front” façade featured fluted cast iron pilasters, a recessed entry, and floor to ceiling plate glass windows. The tall brick parapet above the windows visually tied the three buildings together. After Buford’s death in 1905, his sons carried on the business until 1926. In the 1950s, owner and preservationist Charles Bovey rehabilitated the building for use as a restaurant. He used historic photographs to return the façade back to its stage-coach era Greek Revival-style.
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