Tetley Jewelry Store, 1879 - East Columbia Historic District - Farmington, Missouri - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

"The Tetley Jewelry Store is one of the more prominent and best documented of Farmington's early businesses. The jewelry business was established in 1868, and tax records indicate that the building at 14 E. Columbia was built until around 1879. The business was founded by Robert T. and Ann (Gay) Tetley, who raised their children in the residence which still occupies the second floor and rear of the building. The Tetleys' Jewelry business was to be one of die longest-lived commercial ventures in Farmington's history; it remained in the family for over a century. Their son, George Tetley, took over the business after his father's death, and operated it until his death in 1946. George Tetley was also active in other commercial ventures in the area, and owned a good deal of real estate nearby during his lifetime. A grandson, Howard Tetley, opened a jewelry store of his own just down the street on East Columbia, and stayed in business until 1977.

The Tetley Jewelry Store building is a two story brick building with a flat roof and an elaborate corbeled brick cornice on the facade. The facade also features distinctive sawn granite ornamentation, some of which was covered over for decades. The arched window openings of the second floor have flared arches and wide lug sills of smooth sawn granite. The ground floor of the facade, which has recently been rehabilitated, also utilizes arched granite panels. There are four wide bays at the ground floor, all of which are flanked with flat panels and topped with shallow arches of the same type of granite used on the second floor. All of the granite on the ground floor was found intact beneath modern sheathing during the recent rehab project.

The Tetley Jewelry Store, like most of the buildings in the district, takes the common vernacular form of the "two-part commercial block." Two-part commercial blocks are two to four stories tall, and are characterized by a horizontal division. The single story lower zones of such buildings were designed to be used as public or commercial spaces, while the upper floors were used for more private functions, such as offices, residences or meeting halls." ~ Historic District National Register Nomination Form