Johnson Furniture

Johnson Furniture. . , In 1883 A. Wettermark of Henderson, Texas, purchased an existing wooden structure from Bennett Blake, Sr. for the sum of $1000 and opened a branch of his banking firm here on the corner of Main and North Street. This was the first official bank in Nacogdoches. The R.D. Orton homestead sat to the east of the bank. In 1896 when the bank moved to the other end of the block on the Public Square, the owners leased the building to a variety of tenants. In 1905 the bakery in the building caught fire and burned the building to the ground. The present brick structure dates from that year; additions to the rear of the building came later. The 1912 map shows the building with two entrances on Main Street and one on the west. The building was the location of Needham's Barber Shop and the original location of Madeen Hair Tonic Company (Mahdeen is Needham spelled backward). The shop occupied the front and the factory/warehouse occupied the rear. Later, the building housed a variety of tenants, including a bakery, electrical suppliers, battery storage, and shops., The building, a one-story rectangular, Victorian commercial structure with a flat slanting roof, has undergone extensive revisions over the years. While little is known about the original bank structure, the brick building of 1905 was the work of architect D. Rulfs. He designed the front, with its cast iron columns and stepped brick work, to blend with the buildings he had earlier designed to the east. In the 1990s Johnson Furniture Company restored the curved metal awnings as shown on the 1912 map.