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Property Location
Property Features
Kusel Hardware began with the elder Daniel Kusel, a German immigrant who came to Watertown in 1849 and opened a tin shop and hardware store on Main Street. He retired in 1864 and his sons Daniel and Frederick took over the business and enlarged it into an important retail business and manufacturing concern. Before taking over the hardware business, Daniel had been, briefly, the cashier of the Merchants Bank.
Daniel Kusel was significant in the development of commerce in Watertown because, with his brother Frederick, he took a small hardware business and made it into the largest and most important business of its type in the community. The brothers also started the Kusel Dairy Equipment Company,a manufacturer of dairy equipment which provided employment and industrial development in the community. Because Kusel Hardware's main store is no longer extant, and other resources are related to the business are rare, this house takes on added significance as the best resource associated with Daniel Kusel in the community.
Originally a small brick house built in 1849 that is presently the rear wing, the Italianate styled front section was built after Daniel Kusel, an early Watertown hardware merchant, purchased the rpoperty in 1870. Characterized by a gabled projectory entrance "tower" or bay featuring a Palladian styled window, the Kusel house is further characterized by articulated triangular pediment shaped projecting wooden window heads and a one-bay open entrance porch supported by Ionic columns on paneled bases with arched openings. The porch leads to a side lighted door topped by a transom window. Exhibiting gabled sections on both sides of, as well as at the rear of the truncated hipped roof. The roof of the Kusel house features iron cresting around the truncated area. A southside screened porch and open north side porch are added features of this historic house.
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
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