The M.G. Hazel Building

The M.G. Hazel Building. . The northeast corner of Main and Church Street was part of the land conveyed by the Spanish Government to Ygnacio Y'Barbo on April 16, 1810. The corner later belonged to the Durst, Roberts, Johnson, and Thorn families. While the first buildings of Episcopal Christ Church sat just north of the corner from 1852, but as late as 1885, there was no building on the corner. By 1891 a small store domicile with a wrap around porch occupied the lot. The confectionary and a restaurant that occupied the front of the building no doubt served the Hart Hotel across Main Street. This wooden structure continued in use as a grocery store until 1900., The Daily Sentinel reported in 1901 that there was a "building boom" along the East Main Street area. The boom started along Church Street and then spread to Main. Architect and contractor D. Rulfs built the two-story M.G. Hazel Building between May and September of 1901. To celebrate the completion of the structure, Rulfs called the carpenters together to place a "pine top" on the building and to celebrate at a nearby lunch room the fact that Hazel had "come across" with his payments for the job. Cason and Richardson Hardware took out a five year lease on the building while it was under construction, but before they moved in, they sold this lease to the newly organized Commercial National Bank. The prominent west corner of the Hazel Building became the first home of Commercial Bank; the Hazel Grocery Store occupied the east side. The bank moved to the north side of the Public Square within a few years. Later occupants of the building included furniture, general merchandise, and a drug store. The building is now owned by Carolyn and Reese Andrews., When it opened, the building had wrap around, two-story porches supported by iron posts on the first floor and wooden ones on the second. Large plate glass windows over which there were elaborate tinted lights separated by iron posts resting on a continuous iron threshold, ran along Main Street and wrapped around the Church Street corner. While this lower front of the building is now greatly changed, the upper floor remains very much as Rulfs designed it (minus the porches.) The double hung, two over two windows have arched upper sashes which are echoed in the arched moldings of brick that run aroud the entire building. The larger door opening that gave access to the upstairs porch still is the center of the Main Street facade. The decorative brick details, dental moldings, recessed panels, and pilasters are...