Peter E. Nelson opened a general mercantile store the spring of 1885. In 1890 he moved his business to the Ross Building in Block 60, Lot 14, where Fred Hodge joined the firm and it became known as Nelson and Hodge. This partnership lasted bout 21/2 years. By 1891, Mr. Nelson had traded stores with William Glass, moving his business to the corner of Ninth and Burrell. Here he remained in the hardware business until 1929, when a fire burned out a section of stores in that area. Stores burned in that fire included The People's Store, Nelson Hardware, Newgaard Studio, Marquardt's Palace of Sweets and Lindgren's Millinery.
Throughout the years, the upstairs of this store housed the offices of David Bartlett Law Office and Attorney, M.W. Duffy. The telephone office was housed upstairs from 1907 to 1927.
After the fire, the hardware business was run for a few years in the warehouse just south of the original building, the present Sentinel - Courier office.
Source: Cooperstown, North Dakota 1882-1982 Centennial Page 198