Earlier this month, I saw a post on Facebook, announcing a historic grant was given to remodel the old Varino building at 200 Commerce Street in West Monroe, next to the Flying Heart Brewery. I’m very excited about this, since the building is probably over 120 years old! I have also heard it has a basement; one of the very few in the Twin Cities. I don’t know if that is true or not.
I don’t know exactly when the building was built. Sanborn Fire Insurance maps don’t have it on the 1898 map and then it appears on the 1903 map, which gives a rough estimate. You could probably pin the date down further at the Clerk of Court office to see when Mr. Varino bought the lot.
Salvatore Calderaro “Frank” Varino was the man who had the building built. He was an Italian immigrant from Caccamo, Italy. He opened the first commercial grocery business in West Monroe in that building. A line in his February 10, 1953 obituary states the business, “…with another year will have been in existence for a half century.” That gives us a clue that it may have been opened in 1903.
After Frank Varino died in 1953, it became the Wallace Paper Company, selling paper products and Janitorial supplies. By 1958 it was the Johnnie Bayles Supply Company. The next time I see the address in the paper in 1984, it is a knickknack store called One Natchitoches Place. By 1990 it was the Lighter Side Restaurant, which closed in the summer of 1992 after an outbreak of Hepatitis A. The building has been empty ever since. I can’t wait to see what will be done with the building!
Ouachita Parish History Tidbits 