How great to have a horse stable in the middle of town. Hopefully the horses were able to run around in the grassy fields on the outskirts of town. This is the same building that eventually housed the hardware store (see photo below). The spot where this building used to stand is now the parking lot for the Tweaked Too vintage store which is housed in the smaller building on the left side of this photo. This building was completed in 1890 a few months before a fire that destroyed a good portion of the downtown district, including the whole block north of the barn. The building likely survived because it was constructed of brick when most of the other buildings were wood structures. The fire was set by an arsonist and the culprit was never found. This photo was in the Oxford, IA Centennial, 1869-1969 book.
Oxford, Iowa 