Hartley Pell had a real estate license and Bill Pell, his son, had a salesman license, however Hartley just worked out of his home and never really had an office downtown of any nature. In 1962 Bill purchased the Miller and Miller insurance agency and then took over ownership of it on January 1st 1963. Hartley & Bill had their office across the street, where the First National Bank is now, and then when the First National Bank bought that corner they temporarily resided in what was known as Dr. Kaisers office for a short term, while they built at the present location; 221 West Nassau Street. Hartley and Bill had owned the lot on West Nassau Street, it had an old meat market building on it. They tore down the old building and built a new one, which they then added on to in 1987. The insurance agency dates back to before the turn of the 19th century and was known as the Sackett and Fay agency, it was owned by Albert E Miller. Albert’s son, Hilton E. Miller joined the business and it was then known as Miller and Miller agency. Bill Pell purchased the business from Hilton E. Miller in 1963 for $15,000. Pell’s have continued to be in business since that point in time. Bill got his real estate brokers license and the business expanded to include real estate as well as insurance and continued to grow at that rate.
Although he was retired, Hartley did continue to come down to the office on a regular basis to answer the telephone and things of that nature. Hartley was never really involved in the insurance side of the business. He held a real estate license, but was not active in the business,and basically retired. In 1963 when Bill started the business Hartley was 63 years old, so he would not have wanted to work that hard anymore.
After several years of being in business, Bill purchased the Henry N. Benson agency, a small agency. Bill then purchased the W. Hallander agency, which at that time was the largest agency in St. Peter. Our agency grew to be about equal in size, thus now making it the largest in St Peter. As time progressed we also purchased the Wally Reineke agency and Leighton Swenson agency. These have been our acquisitions over the years and we have always been, at times, heavily into rental property and do a lot of contract for deed financing. We are somewhat limited in the amount of building we do, but all in all we are pretty active in all phases of the real estate and insurance business.
If you were to say something you could say that we have continuously served the St Peter community for the last 50 years. Hopefully we are here to stay.