GEORGE W. BOLINGER, dealer in stoves, tinware, crockery, and house furnishing goods, 210 and 212 South Fifth street, has been engaged sixteen years in that business, at that number. Three floors of the building, thirty-five by seventy feet, are filled with his large stock of cooking and heating stoves, queen's and glassware, and general house furnishing goods, in which he conducts a large retail trade. He also manufactures tin, sheet iron, and copper ware, and does jobbing, roofing, guttering, and cornice work, employing an average of four mechanics. He has the exclusive local agency for the sale of the Omaha coal and hot blast Charter wood cook stoves. He does an annual business of $30,000. Mr. Bolinger is a native of Maryland, and is forty-one years old. Previous to coming to Illinois, he was carrying on a harness shop in Hagerstown, in that State, having learned that trade in early life. In 1860, he came to Springfield, and continued in the same line three years here' then operated two years in dry goods, as a member of Herndon & Co., before embarking in the stove trade. He began in a modest way, in one room, and sold nothing but a few wood stoves. Each year his business has increased, demanding a large and more varied stock, until it is now one of the most comprehensive in Central Illinois. Mr. Bolinger united in marriage with Margaret S. Staley, in Maryland. Their union has been blessed with three sons and one daughter. Mr. B. and family are members of the Second M. E. Church.