This may have been the location of a store in the early 1900s called Mattingly’s where men congregated smoking cigars and swapping stories. They also sold delicious chocolate candy and one former customer, Mae C. Boyd, says you could “cut the smoke with a knife” when you entered. The store closed when Leo Moore purchased the property. In 1932, Leo M. Moore (1880-1946), Publisher of the Democratic Ledger purchased this property from the Edward Zeitler Estate and built a modern brick building. He added the latest printing equipment and established a complete publishing business here with offset and letterpress printing. Moore continued publishing the newspaper until his death January 8, 1946, when his sons Leo Jr. and Charles M. Moore took it over. They sold the paper in January 1964 to The Shield Press, publisher of The Aegis. The two papers were merged and then published as The Aegis.

In 1971 this building was bought by William and Helen Rose Bradley who owned it until 2002. During some of that time this was Bradley Kitchens, featuring Formica and laminated plastic kitchen cabinets. They also made and installed custom vanities. This later became home to a slot car race track, called “The Lucky Ten.” Bill Bradley owned and built the track. It had ten color-coded 1/24th scale tracks with timers and many kids spent hours playing into the night for a “frog skin” (a dollar bill). After Bill Bradley closed the track, he built a “tunnel hull boat” inside the building. He called it the “Top Cat” and put a leopard skin top on the canopy that slid closed like a fighter plane. Stan Rodia says “That was quite a sight going up the river.” After Bill Bradley died in 1998, his widow, Helen Bradley, sold the building to Julia T. Groner.

The building served as a church in 1998 and as Franklin Street Antiques later. It has apartments above the store area and in 2015 the building was bought by Eriter, LLC of West Chester, Pennsylvania. Victoria Brown Swanson renovated, decorated, and painted the building and in spring of 2019 she opened a new shop called “Bay Breeze Soaps.”

County Records
Built 1935. 2622 sq ft, multiple residence/commercial, 1486 sq ft lot.