98.531.4

The interior of the Tilden Store on Onondaga (Main) Street in downtown Ames in the 1880s. The male clerk in the left of the photograph is Ole Bauge, son of Nils and Synneva Bauge (pioneers who built the Bauge Cabin, now [1999] restored in McFarland Park). Bauge's special interest in the Tilden Store was shoes. He eventually founded his own shoe store across the south side of Onondaga across from the Tilden Store. He and then his son Jennings S. Bauge ran the shoe store for many years. The female clerk is unidentified. The stairway in the back of the photograph led to the store's second floor. Tilden's was a "department" store from its very beginnings. Tilden's was remodeled many times in its almost-hundred year history. It closed in 1971. The building it occupied is now [2003] an antique mall, "Memories on Main" and is located on the north side of Main Street near the Douglas Avenue corner. (See also: 110.605.2)