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I had mentioned it before that this little building was built and opened as the temporary location for the Church Hill branch of the American National Bank and opened on September 15, 1922. Afterwards it had become among things an insurance company office, confectionary shop, camera and record shop, a dry cleaners, and then nothing for a long time but storage.
It is attached to the main building which was under construction at the same time and opened on November 20, 1923.
John Murden, you probably know off the top of your head–but I’ve always wondered about the origin of this building. In the 90’s, it had some fantastic murals on the front. Before that, how was it used? Did it have a business connection to the bank building?
What a cool little place I wonder what it could be?!
@Elaine – I’ve never looked it up, but an very curious. Anyone know anything?
See my comments about the building’s history 🙂
i think it was NAPA for a while, then a recreation center for a while, church, etc.
Im gonna have the building open for a bit at three oclock Saturday, come take a look. The city tells me it was a dry cleaners from 1940 til ’74, then had a c.o. for a church with less than 20 members. How bout a florist for Church Hill?
Thanks Rob. That was one of the businesses I mentioned in my post above and seen in a photo of Church Hill in the 1960s with people standing in front of the old final bank building on the corner now a church.
At one time when the theaters were still in business, someone wanted to put a liquor store in it but the community fought against it and won citing children went to the theaters and the kind of business with the clientele it would bring in was immoral being so close to the theaters. Then I think it was an auto parts store as you said for a while. But the little building was originally opened in 1922 as the temporary location for the larger bank attached to it that opened the following year. I have the newspaper ads and articles on both when I was doing research for one of my CHA newsletter articles.
To clarify, the liquor store proposal and the NAPA auto parts was in the larger building.
After the main bank building opened, the small building was turned into an insurance office and owned by Thomas Garrett Tabb. Then in 1934, was a confectioner’s shop owned by Roland Lee Hord. Then around 1945 turned into a restaurant called the Marshall Inn until 1951. After that it was turned into a Cleaners for the African-American community named Admiral Cleaners then Dumont Cleaners. This was at least into the 1960s when it was closed and later becoming other short term businesses.
Hope that helps. The building has a basement and pine wood floors on street level according to the tax records I have a copy of.
In 2013, Leo Loflin was planning a steak house there.
Any updates on this?