Watts Building (1888)

O. V. Hunt photograph of the Watts Building

The first Watts Building was a richly ornamented four-story Second-Empire style commercial building on the northwest corner of 3rd Avenue North and 20th Street in downtown Birmingham. It was constructed for Thomas Watts III by Charles M. Allen and Son in 1888. The building was designed by Charles Wheelock of Wheelock & Wheelock in the Second Empire style, with a rusticated base, grouped windows with brick arches on the second and third floors, and a deep cornice with a mansard roof above.

In 1927 Watts hired Allen & Son to demolish the 39-year-old building to make room for a new 17-story tower on the same site.

Tenants

Early tenants in the Watts building included architect J. W. McClain and the Eubank Brothers' dental parlor. In 1905 chemist Jefferson J. Peek opened his Peek Beverage Company in the Watts Building.

Among the law firms with offices in the Watts Building were John Heflin and William Bulger; James Little; L. C. Dickey and J. F. Gillespie; and Brooks & Brooks.

• Room 1: Smith & Norton real estate, 1909
• Room 10: J. J. McDavid, real estate law, 1888
• Room 14: Laura E. Burton and Irene Bullard, physicians, 1906
• Room 15: Breeding & Whilldin, architects, 1904

References

• North Alabama (Illustrated) (1888) Birmingham: Southern Commercial Publishing Co.
• "Doctor Kills Wife and Self; Dentist Shot." (April 10, 1906) "Birmingham Age-Herald", republished by A. J. Wright, Early Female Physicians of Alabama - accessed June 1, 2006
• Satterfield, Carolyn Green. (1976) Historic Sites of Jefferson County, Alabama. Prepared for the Jefferson County Historical Commission. Birmingham: Gray Printing Co.
• White, Marjorie Longenecker, ed. (1977) Downtown Birmingham: Architectural and Historical Walking Tour Guide. Birmingham:Birmingham Historical Society