FOW Tour - 3626 McColloch Street

On April 5, 2025 Friends of Wheeling toured 3626 McColloch St.

At this address is a warehouse with attached 6 car garage & paint booth.
* 17900 Sq Ft * 8 x 20 fully functional freight elevator * 3 floors are completely open (46X87) with 9 ft ceilings * 1st floor is broken up into office space and an apartment * new rubber roof in 2020 The building was built very well and can hold considerable amounts of weight on every floor! Price is $444,000 Contact Rick Davis 304-280-4074

History of 3626 McColloch Street:

The land on which this building stands was part of a large portion of South Wheeling property, stretching from 36th to 37th Streets, that was owned by the Hobbs Brockunier Glass Company in the mid to late 19th Century. The United State Glass Company succeeded Hobbs Brockunier, which was then succeeded by H. Northwood Company. The building itself came later, probably in the early 1900s.

The Hanlon-Sharps Company of Belmont County, Ohio (William W. Hanlon, Oliver Hanlon, and W.E. Sharps), purchased the property from H. Northwood Company in mid 1905. That company manufactured “envelopes, sheet and roll wrapping paper, paper sacks, calendars, office supplies weatherproof signs, and advertising novelties.” An ad appeared in the 1907-1909 Wheeling City Directory. The company apparently went bankrupt a few years later, and in 1911 a consortium of businessmen, some of whom lived in Weston, WV, acquired the property on which the building stands. That group began the “No-Leak Paper Dish Company, Manufacturers of Paper Butter Dishes” by 1914. Owners at the time included Louis and Sallie Maxwell Bennett,

The then five-story building is evident on the 1921-1922 Sanborn Insurance Map, with the much larger H. Northwood glass plant shown just to the northeast. A north-south rail track is adjacent, to the left on the map.

On October 13, 1914, a disastrous fire caused significant damage, with the fire chief suggesting that a “passing locomotive throwing a spark into an open window on the fourth floor” was the cause. Newspaper reports from that time describe the No-Leak Paper Dish company as manufacturers of ice cream and oyster buckets and butter and lard dishes, with “products sent to practically every state in the Union.” The fourth floor was used as a stock room, and the fifth and part of the fourth were used by Cooey-Bentz Furniture Company for storage. Damage was contained to those two floors, and insurance reportedly covered most of the losses. Fireman Henry Meyer was injured when his arm was caught in the machinery of a pumper truck, and Fireman Jerry Fish died of tuberculosis seven weeks later, “his death hastened by a cold he contracted at the No-Leak Paper Dish Company fire.” Elmer T. Maxwell, manager of the company at the time of the fire, reported that the company would “resume operation as soon as the insurance is adjusted and a roof can be placed on the building.” The building is now just three stories in height, with the loss of the top two floors probably dating from the time of the fire.

Joseph Speidel purchased the property in 1935, and Wheeling city directories from the time show that it was the home of Loose Wiles Biscuit Company, later known as Sunshine Biscuits.

W. Russell Clarke and George Bailey purchased the property in 1959, and it served as the home of Clarke Paper Company into the 1970s.

Farm Fresh, Inc. was the next owner, purchasing the property in mid 1979. City directories from the following few years show that is housed general and accounting offices for Farm Fresh, Inc., State Food Stores, and Garvin’s Jersey Farms.

The current owners, Richard and Leslie Davis, purchased the property in 2012. It is now on the market.

Tour Video:
youtu.be/UgzsVvtmQOs
Note: the video ended prior to us going to the roof.