421 6th Street North
Cannon Falls, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Darwin E. Yale House (Dennis T. Leibold House)

Statement of Significance:

The Darwin E. Yale House is significant for its association with the hardware business - one of the primary services provided by small commercial centers like Cannon Falls in the latter half of the 19th century.

Like many of the small manufacturing communities that grew up in southeastern Minnesota, Cannon Falls quickly expanded its functions to become a service center for the surrounding countryside. Farmers flocked to the wide variety of stores that emerged in the town. There were no more essential types of goods they were seeking than the metal utensils and agricultural implements sold in the early hardware stores.

Darwin E. Yale was one of the first recorded hardware dealers in Cannon Falls, starting in this business in 1875. It was four years later, in 1879, that he built the main section of the Darwin E. Yale House. In its stylish elegance and substantial proportions (particularly with the additions he added on in later years), the Darwin E. Yale House well reflects the importance of the hardware merchant in the economy of the town and the surrounding countryside.