Busse Buick

Name of Building or Business: Busse Buick

Address: 2 W. Busse then 30 S. Main

Built: 1912 and 1918

Demolished:  2006 and 199

What is currently at that address:  Blues Bar and Condos

In 1908 William Busse was walking along Michigan Avenue in Chicago with a business associate. They passed a Buick dealership and were fascinated by the car they saw in the window. They were a little cautious, but agreed to buy a car. William Busse enjoyed the car and two years later upgraded to a larger car. He was so impressed that he contacted the manufacturer and offered to become a local agent, he was told that the Buick Dealers in Chicago had a deal that there could be no other dealers in Cook County outside the city limits, so William Busse went home, but did not forget. Two years later, he was finishing building the 2 W. Busse building and a stranger showed up and asked to speak to William Busse. He explained that he was a Buick representative and had come to offer Busse a charter for a local agency. Busse Buick was born in 1912 and originally housed in the building at 2 W. Busse. This building houses Busse’s hardware store and each day they would roll the cars out onto the street in the morning and then roll them back into the store at night.

Soon a small cinderblock garage was built. This 1915 cinderblock building was built to be used as a service station, complete with gas pumps; however it was too small for their operations. In 1918, they began construction of a larger garage at 30 S. Main Street. The building was expanded in 1921 and then again in 1928. In that same year, William Busse broke up the Busse Hardware Store, he made Busse Buick independent; sold the hardware store to Frank Biermann, creating Busse-Biermann Hardware; and sold the farm equipment dealership to Herman Meyn.

The building along Main Street was a center in the village. It was a full service mechanics shop, gas station, and a car dealership. The Busse Buick dealership remained a landmark in downtown Mount Prospect for fifty years and remained within the Busse family for that entire time. When the dealership was sold in 1966, it was the oldest Buick dealership in Cook County. However, with the development of larger dealerships in fringe areas and increased sprawl, a dealership in the center of town was not large enough to compete and had no space to grow. When the dealership was sold, it moved and the building was later used by the Northwest Electric Supply Company. The façade of the building was modified and the structure was not well maintained. Eventually, the building was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a condominium building.