Building Memories: Russell’s Dry Cleaners, 41 W. Jefferson Ave.

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Russell Breitwieser presses a pair of pants at his dry cleaning store on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. Breitwieser opened Russell's Cleaners in Naperville in 1967 and still spends a few hours a day work at the store. | Brian Powers~Sun-Times Media

41 W. Jefferson Timeline

1842: Charles B. Hosmer owns the lot

about 1852: Henry H. Peaslee opens a dry good store — may have built the building

1855: A.C. Yundt purchases building and business

1864: David and Martin Brown open store

1897: Benjamin J. Slick and Joseph Kochly open their store. Slick had worked for Martin Brown and for Williard Scott Jr. Kochly had worked for Scott.

1906: Slick & Kochly buy the building

1929: Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company grocery operates in the building until at least 1940

1951: Main Store, owned by Larry & Shirley Zabelin, opens

1963: Breitwiesers buy building from the Rubin family

1967: Main Store moves to 216 S. Main St.; Russell’s Dry Cleaners opens

Source: Interviews,
Naperville Heritage Society

Article Extras

Updated: January 19, 2012 10:33AM

At arguably one of the best-known corners in downtown Naperville, Russell’s Dry Cleaners has a story that weaves together pieces of several Naperville families and business legends.

Forty-four years ago, Russ Breitwieser, tired of cleaning carpets for a living, built a dry cleaning plant in a building his dad had recently purchased at 41 W. Jefferson Ave. Down in the basement, he found egg crates — remnants from the years the building housed an A&P grocery store.

Upstairs, in one of the four apartments, he found a round hole that once was covered by the dentist chair of Dr. A.B. Slick, whose father, Benjamin, owned the often-photographed general store below with Joseph Kochly.

Main Store

Years after Slick & Kochly closed, after the A&P had relocated, Larry Zabelin and Herb Cigelnik opened the Main Store there in 1951.

Johno Galles ran it for the Aurora owners. Galles, 87, bought Main Surplus in Aurora in 1980. He was busy with customers there recently, but took a moment to note that when he worked in Naperville, his landlord was Al Rubin.

Galles left Naperville in the ’50s to open a Main Store in DeKalb, and Dean DeGeeter took over the Naperville store. DeGeeter had worked in the Main Store in Aurora before entering the Army in 1954. When he returned home, he was asked to work at the Naperville Main Store.

“It was a total surplus store. We’d have Army stuff, overalls, kids clothing, whatever,” DeGeeter said.

While working there, DeGeeter noticed no store in Naperville carried a good line of boys clothing. Taking the cue, he opened a boys and young men’s store at 226 S. Main St. in 1959 and called it “Dean’s.” Dean’s Clothing celebrated its 50th anniversary a couple of years ago.

The Main Store turned to ex-Marine Jean Peters, who managed the store through the early ’60s.

“I remember I’d go there and work Saturdays when I was 12-13 years old,” said his son, Whitey Peters, an Aurora alderman. “The trip from Aurora to Naperville was a two-lane highway through cornfields, and if there was snow, you always wondered if you’d make it.”

Russell’s takes over

In 1967 — four years after J. Ralph Breitwieser bought the building from the Rubin family, figuring it would provide retirement income — Russ asked the Main Store to relocate so he could open a dry cleaners.

Don Zabelin was a kid at the time, but remembers helping his dad move merchandise down the street to 216 S. Main. Larry and Shirley Zabelin ran the store from 1980, when they sold their Aurora store to Galles, until 1992.

Breitwieser had been working as a rug cleaner since 1957. His Bright Carpet & Rug Cleaning was in the back room of his dad’s Bright Cleaners, at the corner of Main Street and Jackson Avenue. He also cleaned carpets in homes as wall-to-wall carpeting became popular. But moving all that heavy furniture was exhausting.

With the help of his mentor, the owner of Steven’s Cleaners in Aurora — where his dad sent out his dry cleaning and for whom Russ had been cleaning rugs — Breitwieser installed the piping and equipment into 41 S. Jefferson himself for his impressive new store.

“Bright Cleaners was my dad’s name, and when I came here, I thought I should use my first name, like Steve,” said Breitwieser, 76. “My dad then came to work for me. He was 60, and tired of working 60-hour weeks. He worked Saturdays til 1988 and worked here until 1990. He did the physical dry cleaning work until his arms just wore out.”

In those days, Russell’s employed 24. Currently, he has six part-time employees, including son-in-law Stan Systo, who took over for his dad. “It used to be chaos in here, but it was efficient.”

Branching off

Russ continued rug and carpet cleaning with the help of the “best worker he ever had” — Dave Martin. Martin began working for Breitwieser while attending North Central College and eventually bought him out in 1978, opening Russell-Martin.

“He thought we had a great reputation, and we did. He took the name and the equipment and went out on his own,” said Breitweiser of his friend.

The dry cleaners needed the space. In those years, “we had stuff everywhere,” said Breitwieser, because cleaners often stored wool clothing for customers in the summer. The bagged storage items hung on 125 feet of rack. Russ’ wife, Adrenne, (who died in 1986) did “alterations for the whole town” from a small sewing area. Cleaning draperies was also a busy part of the shop. “We used to run the drape folding machines five to six hours a day.”

These days, rent from the apartments upstairs and the shop behind the building carry the building, Breitwieser said from the back of the dry cleaners where the business legend himself still goes each morning for a few hours, entering through the side door that was built to accommodate women alighting from tall buggies.

Joni Hirsch Blackman is a journalist and author of “Downtown Naperville.” Contact her at jonihb@culdesacs.net