Stop 21: Johnsons Block – 216 Broadway (Contributing)
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Designed by Jacob Friedlander for the Johnson Brothers, this building housed the Johnson bicycle shop, as well as apartments, for many years. Made of brick, it is decorated with an elaborate corbelled brick cornice and was built in 1900. Johnson Brothers claimed to have the only complete repair shop in the northwest. The business started in Moorhead in 1887, relocating to Fargo two years later. Bicycles were very popular in the 1890s, both as quick, convenient transportation and as a form of exercise. Another Fargo bicycle dealer, George D. Brown, kept several hundred bicycles in stock along with the new invention, the horseless carriage.