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Del Sarape Restaurant -
908 8TH AV
 Print Listing
Historical Name -
Greeley Loan Co./The Toggery
Style -
No Style
Built Year -
1918-21
State ID -
5WL4113
Description -
One-story, long, rectangular, brick commercial building with flat roof with decorative cornice with corbelled brackets. Walls have painted brick above shed roof, wood shingled canopy overhang with scalloped underside that shelters storefront. Off-center entrance with metal frame glazed door and transom. Two large plate glass display windows north of entrance. Orange brick under windows and at entrance area. Rear of building has painted brick wall, paneled and glazed door, and covered up window.
Historical Background -
This building does not appear on a 1918 Sanborn map, it is shown in a 1921 Weld County News photograph that indicates it was part of the Greeley Loan Company facilities. The company occupied the two-story building to the north by 1913, and this building appears to have provided additional space for the firm. The Greeley Loan Company was a successor to Sanborn & Houston, one of the oldest real estate and insurance companies that operated in Greeley. The company's roots extended to the founding of the Union Colony in 1870. Civil War veteran John F. Sanborn arrived in Greeley as one of the first colonists and established a fire and life insurance agency by the end of the year. Sanborn died in 1876 and his son Burton D. Sanborn took over the firm. He was later joined by George M. Houston, who worked as a bookkeeper and insurance representative, and eventually became office manager and married Sanborn's daughter. By 1905 the firm reorganized as Sanborn and Houston.
Sanborn increasingly focused on agricultural real estate and the development of irrigation systems. Houston served as mayor of Greeley (1909-10) and president of the Normal School Board (1909-15). Sanborn died in 1914, and the following year Houston organized the Greeley Loan Company. The firm's operations included fire and automobile insurance, farm and real estate loans, security brokerage, management of real estate, and property appraisal. A history of the company in the files of the City of Greeley Museums notes that "in the early twenties [the company] began to falter as George Houston began to spend more time farming and developing water than watching after the agency." In 1923 the company was taken over by the Greeley Abstract Company. During subsequent years this building held a variety of shops. The Toggery (a clothing store) occupied this building from 1922 through at least 1960, according to city directories. In 1970 the Beneficial Finance Company operated here.
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