State College Historic Site

Built in 1894, the Foster Building—which later became the Gentzel Building—was State College's first apartment building. It is credited as the first property to convert from a wooden to a concrete sidewalk. The store space made history, housing the first post office on its own, the first store devoted to children's clothing, and the oldest continuously operating bar. With the arrival of "Foster's Corner," four apartments were available to State College families; previous rentals were in private homes.

As the front of William LeFevre Foster's building, as this 1904 photograph shows, was his general merchandise store and the post office, whose incoming mail arrived from the railroad station in Lemont via wagon. In 1913, Will Foster sold the building to Perry Homer Gentzel. From 1929 to 1967, the post office space held The Children's Shop, opened by Myra S. Breon and owned for 36 of those years by Verda and Ross Edminston. Pennshire Clothes, managed for many years by Les Pooler, moved in until 1984; the Kids Clothesline opened in 1985.

Around 1930, the Foster's store location became "Pop" and Viola Flood's Campus Green Room; below it, in 1933, was the Green Room Rathskeller and Gardens, which became C.C. "Doggie" Alexander's All-American Campus Restaurant here from 1946 to 1973. The Old Main Restaurant followed;



Spats Cafe & Speakeasy opened in 1987.

The upstairs apartments are still rented.

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