The longest continuously operating business in Grant County has closed its doors.
Curran Roofing Co. was open for the last time on Friday. Handwritten signs on the doors to its 1820 W. Second St. building say, “Closed for good. 3-23-12. Thanks Marion.”
It was open for 128 years.
President Todd Curran said the company was hit hard by the economic downtown of the last three years. Eventually, around a month ago, the decision was made to pay the last bills and close down.
The company was founded in 1884 by Forrest V. Curran, Todd’s great-grandfather, and was passed down to his grandfather, Glen Curran, and his father, Robert Curran.
When the business started, commercial roofing was an “unusual need,” Curran said. However, it increasingly became a necessary one as Marion and Grant County grew.
Local historian Bill Munn said that many local companies around that time saw success in Grant County and grew beyond its borders.
“A lot of them were very successful and ended up merged in larger corporations,” he said.
Though it stayed local, Munn said Curran Roofing Co. was one of the major long-standing local businesses in Marion. Over the years, it stayed open while other similar companies like Osborn Paper Co. and Foster Forbes faded away.
Curran is acutely aware of his company’s place in Marion’s history. In 1987, the National Roofing Contractors Association framed a collection of historic photographs and mementos Curran sent them.
Things were different in Marion for the first 50 years or so Curran Roofing was in business and located in downtown Marion.
Curran has a framed photograph of a largely spontaneous gathering around the courthouse downtown.
“It used to be the merchants downtown who were out with the ‘broom brigade,’” he said, referring to the daily or weekly cleanups necessary when horses still walked the streets.
During the Depression, the family had a link with another long-standing local business — Glen Curran had a column with the Chronicle-Tribune called “Curran Events.”