This building began as several wooden commerical structures constructed in the 1870s and early 1880s. These were destroyed by fire in 1892 and Walter Smith announced construction of two adjacent brick buildings on the site. Early occupants were The When Shoe Store and Smith's own drug store. An additional building was built next to Smith's structures by Alonzo Parkell for his tailoring company. Multiple stores came and went through the three storefronts and second story offices until Frederick W. Steadley bought all these properties by 1927. A year after his death in 1928, the three buildings were refaced in buff brick for a unified facade and the structure was renamed the Steadley building in honor of the one-time Carthage jeweler, limestone quarry owner, spring bed manufacturer (under name of Carthage Bed Spring Company, later Steadley Manufacturing) and one of the town's largest real estate investors. This building in within the Carthage Courthouse Square District of the National Register of Historic Places.
Other late 19th and early 20th century stores occupying this portion of the square's east side were: Deal Drugs, Edel Drugs, W. T. Roach China and Queensware shop, Fitzer's General Store and Francis Variety Store.
One of the later twentieth century occupants of this structure was the C & W Cafe (1963 - 1980) later becoming the Gaslight Restaurant. Still visible on an interior wall of #342 is a mural painted by Richard Rhine for the C & W Cafe with the theme of Victorian Carthage and its local trolley system. Once the Gaslight closed, other retail stores were located at these addresses including today's two merchants in the two storefronts.