Briggs Hardware Building - Raleigh, NC
N 35° 46.645 W 078° 38.361
17S E 713375 N 3961831
The four-story red brick Briggs Hardware building was Raleigh's first "skyscraper" and is the only late 19th-century downtown commercial building to survive essentially unchanged since its construction.
Waymark Code: WMAHVZ
Location: North Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 01/18/2011
Views: 3
"Briggs Hardware Store is an Italianate brick building that rises four stories on its Fayetteville Street side and three stories at the rear section, which fronts Salisbury street. The building is three bays wide and features an elaborate parapet increasing its apparent height. The storefront dates to the 1999 rehabilitation of the building and features plate glass windows with three centered arches set into a wood surround with squared pilasters. The original upper stories of the Fayetteville Street facade are richly detailed with cast-iron corner quoins, cast-iron hooded windows adorned with decorative lion heads, and an elaborate bracketed cornice of pressed sheet metal. The S. Salisbury Street side has two personnel entrances at the ground floor and segmental arched four-overfour windows at the two upper stories. Upper-story windows on both ends of the building show diminution to accentuate the height of the structure.
The store building was completed in 1874 following a two-year construction project that replaced an 1865 structure that stood at the same site. The business was established by Thomas H. Briggs, a contractor and real estate investor, and his partner James Dodd. Upon Dodd’s retirement, the store became a family business with two sons establishing a new partnership with Briggs. The store sold a vast variety of goods and remained in business at this location until 1995. The building was rehabilitated in 1999 and now houses offices and a museum."
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The building was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1973.