403 Main Street (Racine, Wisconsin)

403 Main Street is the address of a building in downtown Racine, Wisconsin. Built in 1893 for the W.S. Buffham & Son paint store, it housed a J.C. Penney department store from 1925 to 1948, a Salkin & Linoff department store from 1949 to 1953, and a Walgreens drugstore from 1953 to 1994.

History
The current building was constructed in 1893 for the W.S. Buffham & Son paint store, which operated there until 1925, when the Buffham family leased the site to J.C. Penney.

Racine's first J.C. Penney department store opened in the building on November 6, 1925. In the early morning of June 20, 1943, a fire caused damage estimated at $62,000 to the store building. In 1945, the company announced plans to construct a new building at 413 Main Street, then the site of Bloch Furniture Co. The new store ultimately opened on November 11, 1948.

An S & L department store, the 37th location in the chain, opened in the building on March 25, 1949. The building was owned by the Buffham family until 1952, when it was sold to Edward Shovers. S & L closed on January 17, 1953, the day after Walgreen Drug Company announced that it would begin leasing the space.

Walgreens moved into the building's ground floor from its existing Racine location at 201 6th Street, opening the new store on August 31, 1953, and holding a grand opening on September 3. The same year, the Eitel Apparel Shop at the neighboring 401 Main Street announced it would expand its second floor above the new Walgreens.

The Walgreens store closed with the opening of the nearby Walgreens #3022 at State Street and Memorial Drive on March 7, 1994. Norman Seeger, the owner of the Seeger Map Company business at 401 Main Street, purchased the building in June 1995 to expand his business into the building. He also removed the building's Walgreens facade to reveal its brick front once again.

The Children UpFront program, administered by Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin and Metropolitan Chicago, moved into the building in 1999. Copacetic, a store featuring T-shirts, opened in the building on July 1, 2004.

Seams Unlimited, a costume design business which had moved to 401 Main Street in 2003, occupied the space for several years before shutting down in October 2020 due to the. The business reopened in March 2021 at 1509 Rapids Drive.