Potter/Casey Company Building
E. Minnesota Ave. between 1st and 2nd Sts., NW, Aitkin, MNThe 1902 Potter-Casey Company Building, also known as the Washington Block, housed Aitkin County's leading mercantile establishment for many years. The Potter-Casey Company dates from the early 1870s when Colonel Warren Potter established a lucrative business supplying the basic material needs of both loggers and early Aitkin residents. The firm, known as Potter & Co., eventually established a branch store in Grand Rapids and engaged in various business ventures including hotel proprietorship, steamboating on the Upper Mississippi River, real estate, and logging. The Company erected the brick office building in 1902 both to expand its Aitkin store facility and to provide needed office space for Aitkin's business community. In 1903 Potter & Co. was reorganized and the name changed to Potter-Casey Company. The firm's significant role in the Aitkin community gradually diminished following the deaths of Patrick Casey, junior partner, and general business manager, in 1910, and Potter in 1914. The Company discontinued in the late 1930s. The building ranks among the finest extant turn-of-the-century commercial structures in the region.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.