Click image to enlarge. Behind the Italianate facade of this building is a mid-nineteenth-century retail interior incomparable in Alabama. The focal point is a freestanding stair that corkscrews upward through a tiara-like well to the second floor. A handsomely coved and molded ceiling, ornamented plasterwork, and balustraded light-well complete a setting that affords a rare glimpse of an upscale antebellum commercial interior. It is conceivable that the architect was John Stewart of the preeminent Philadelphia firm of Sloan and Stewart. Stewart was active in Alabama during the 1850s.
Virtually no retail interiors from the 1850s remain intact in Alabama; this one has survived more through happenstance than any real awareness of its importance. It is listed on the National Register as part of Tuskegee's Main Street Historic District. The building, presently occupied by a T-shirt manufacturing company, should be protected and rehabilitated with sensitivity to its unique worth. Fortunately, a proposal to remove the distinctive stair a number of years ago did not materialize, but alterations such as this could happen at any time.
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