The Briggs Hardware Building is a four-story historic building in downtown

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. It was built in 1874 by Thomas Briggs to house his family-owned hardware store. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973. Currently the building is home to the City of Raleigh Museum, and is owned by a joint group of

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Briggs Hardware

In the 1850s Thomas H. Briggs opened his hardware store on Fayetteville Street with partner James Dodd. The partnership with Dodd ended in 1868 and the store became Thomas H. Briggs & Sons. Business was good and in 1874 Briggs was able to construct a new building for the family business. The new building stood at four stories and was called Raleigh's first "

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". It would remain the tallest building in Raleigh for the next 33 years. Briggs Hardware would continue to serve the city from this location until 1995 when the store finally moved to a new location outside of downtown. The hardware store is still owned and operated by the family to this day.

The legend

Soon after the building was completed, a

legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...

circulated about how Thomas Briggs was able to afford to build such a large and elaborate building following the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. The legend claimed that sometime prior to the

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

occupation of Raleigh in 1865, Briggs converted all of his

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money into gold and silver coins. He then took the coins, stuffed them into pipes, found a distinctive grove of trees, and buried the money to prevent Union soldiers from stealing the money. When the soldiers arrived in Raleigh they set up camp near the grove of trees and cut them down. After the troops left, Briggs allegedly spent the next few years searching for his money. When he finally found the coins, he used the money to build his new hardware store.

Additional uses

While the lower floors were used for hardware sales, the building's upper levels saw a variety of uses over the years. In the 1890s, the Oak City Guard rented space for drill practice. Later, the city's first

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was housed here, as well as a

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congregation, the Raleigh Little Theater and offices of a number of attorneys and insurance companies.

Building description

Thanks to the Briggs family and preservation efforts the building looks today much as it did when it was first built. The front facade of the building displays an example of the lively architectural taste of the mid-to-late 19th century. The contrast of red brick with light accents was a favorite of the high

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The hoods and drip molds over the windows are medieval in style, while the tall, bracketed

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

shows the influence of the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

style. The building is four stories tall with a basement running below wooden floors. The original wood floors remain in the building. The building runs the entire length of one city block (between Fayetteville & Salisbury Streets) and is surrounded on either side by two similarly long buildings. The result is a long narrow interior with no side windows. In the center of the building is an opening going up to windows on the roof-top that serves as a skylight for all four above-ground floors. The absence of windows along the side of the building made this skylight opening a necessity in 1874 when there was no

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

Sources

National Park Service: Briggs Hardware Building
{{National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Gothic Revival architecture in North Carolina Commercial buildings completed in 1874 Hardware stores of the United States Buildings and structures in Raleigh, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Raleigh, North Carolina 1874 establishments in North Carolina