Old Cotton Exchange Building

Old Cotton Exchange Building. Mast Office. In 1854, records refer to this building as a "storehouse" serving firms located on Main Street. In the 1880s, the owners agreed with the city to dedicate the alley, first as Progress Street and later as Commerce. In 1896 the building was still one-story, but around 1898 the firm Mayer and Schmidt enlarged and added a second story. With Schmidt in charge of local operations, the firm's agents priced and bought cotton and filled orders from Mayer in the New York office. In 1938 after the Great Depression ruined the Mayer and Schmidt firm, H.R. and A.T. Mast purchased the building. A.T. Mast and A.T. Mast, Jr. made their offices here and preserved the building as it stands today., While a utilitarian building from the start, architect D. Rulfs gave unity to the Cotton Exchange Building when he added the second story and expanded the east end in the 1890s. To support the new upper story, he inserted huge columns hewn from single logs. The east side of Commerce Street, a model of Rulfs' unifying elements, has two-story pilasters, a central fan-shaped pediment at the roof-line, corbelled strings of bricks over the windows on the second floor, double header courses of bricks between the floors, and three arched openings on the first floor. Because of existing doors and windows on the west, this pattern could only be approximated. Along the cornice of the building, Rulfs used inset panels around the entire facade and turrets to punctuate the segments much like on the Old Wettermark Bank Building. While the building has undergone many interior renovations, it remains an outstanding example of practical commercial architecture.