***Editor’s Note: Damage to the awning and facade along the north side of Bracken’s Shopping Center from an EF-1 tornado that struck Kewanee on the evening of Monday, July 15, has rekindled discussion on the future of the complex. The Bracken name and family were associated with the development and growth of that part of town for nearly half a century. Here is their story in Dave Clarke’s “Around Town” special.
It’s a story of love and war, of hopes and dreams that began during World War I when a U.S. Army nurse named Mary Agnes Jamison, of Lodi, Ohio, met a young lieutenant named Harold Bracken, of Rock Falls, Ill. who was serving in the Quartermaster Corps. Both were assigned to a U.S. Cavalry unit stationed at Old Pointe Comfort, in Norfolk, Va.
They were married in 1919 and after the war, Harold went to work as a sales representative for the General Tire & Rubber Co., in Norfolk. In 1936 they decided to move their young family of four sons, Keith, Jack, Bob and Bernard, to Kewanee, Ill., possibly to be closer to Harold’s hometown.
They purchased a gas station at what was then the very end of Tenney Street at the southern city limits and opened Bracken’s Tavern. The following year they built on a small, six-booth addition to the building and opened a small eatery that, in a few years, would expand to become Bracken’s Restaurant, one of the most popular places to take your family for Sunday dinner or your date on the way to the prom.
In October of 1942, Harold announced that the business would be closed for the duration of World War II, largely because of shortages caused by the war effort, and he took a job running a route for a local bread company. With their sons all away serving in the military it also meant less help for mom and dad at the restaurant.
When the boys came home, however, things started to happen. A new concept was taking shape in the economy of post-war America called the shopping center, brought about largely by the increasing number of automobiles and shopping as more of an experience than a necessity.
Outdoor shopping centers were usually a linear series of small businesses located away from the central business district, or a city’s downtown.
Harold and his sons were innovators, risk takers, and weren’t afraid to try new ways to make a buck. They opened Bracken’s Package Liquors, Kewanee’s first self-service business, and Bracken’s Floor Coverings.
Bob and Bernard soon took off to pursue interests in other parts of the country, but remained involved in the family business with Keith, Jack and their parents.
They were all partners in what would become Bracken’s Shopping Center, with Harold as president. There was apparently never a big announcement or ribbon cutting. They just started building to the west and south forming the present “L” shaped complex.
The first mention of the new shopping center in the Star Courier was in June of 1956 when the E. A. Johnson Insurance Agency announced it was opening a new, modern office in Bracken’s Shopping Center on “South Tenney.”
The restaurant had been expanded to a seating capacity of 300 and had added a “party room” for banquets and receptions. A 1964 group ad for the shopping center also listed a growing number of tenants including Western Auto, Charles Gamble Music Co., Pets Bros. Paints, National Cleaners, and Southside Plumbing & Heating.
When the restaurant was destroyed by fire on Good Friday in 1970, Keith opened Bracken’s Shoes, and Jack operated One-Hour Martinizing Cleaners, where Mary worked.
Harold died suddenly in 1960 at age 63. In 1983, two years before her death at age 89 in 1985, Mary and her sons sold the shopping center to Bob Cohen, Sr., and Lou Little, developers of Midland Plaza Shopping Center immediately west of their property, bringing an end to their ownership which went back to 1936. Although now officially and legally a part of Midland Plaza, the now partially occupied complex is still referred to as Bracken’s Shopping Center, continuing their legacy, at least for now.
The Brackens were all about business, but they knew success depended on satisfied customers. They started at the edge of town where few businesses were located, advertised they were “just five minutes south of downtown Kewanee,” on a two-lane road. Instead of doing the expected thing of going to where the shoppers and diners are, they brought them to where they were.
They were pioneers in building the regional center of commerce and service Kewanee has become.
