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The Josephus Hall House was originally built in 1820. It served as the Salisbury Female Academy before it was acquired by Maxwell Chambers after the academy shut its doors in 1825. Chambers lived in the house for 5 years before it became a rental property. Dr. Hall purchased it in 1859, and four generations of the Hall family had lived in the house when Historic Salisbury Foundation bought it in 1972. With nearly 200 years of history, the Hall House has many stories to tell.
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The Napoleon Bonaparte McCanless house, built in 1897, is a beautiful Second Empire style home that sat neglected for some time before Historic Salisbury Foundation bought it in 2019. The house is named for Napoleon Bonaparte McCanless, a prodigious Salisbury entrepreneur with a leading role in organization, funding, and/or building an extraordinary number of ventures. The former residence was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
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During the early 20th century days when everyone traveled by train, the Southern Railway commissioned Frank Milburn to create a building to serve as the hub of Salisbury’s rail traffic. The mission-style station, completed in 1908, is considered one of his best designs. A model of the depot is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.
By 1979, the rail station was no longer in heavy usage, and it sadly closed its doors. In 1984, Historic Salisbury Foundation purchased the building after it had fallen into disrepair. Over $3.1 million was spent restoring the station into a beautiful event space called Historic Salisbury Station, and it became a key to the revitalization of the surrounding area, which is now home to cultural activities, arts, antiques, and offices. |
This foreboding building is known as the Salisbury Ice House. Starting in 1912, the Salisbury Ice and Fuel Co. offered coal, as well as the large blocks of ice that were commonly used in iceboxes as an early form of refrigeration. It helped local residents battle the heat of Southern summers by providing citizens with the ice produced onsite and stored inside its windowless, thick walls that acted like a giant, insulated cooler. Trucks would be lined up and the blocks were plentiful on the hottest days. The ice house operations were expanded in 1932, despite concerns surrounding an accidental ammonia leak. Flammable and toxic ammonia is commonly used as a chemical in commercial refrigeration operations even to this day; citizens were concerned that the ammonia was trapped inside the ice being sold to them. In the early 20th century, it wasn’t uncommon for food safety to be a very real concern. However, those worries were shortly forgotten when that building-sized cooler caught the attention of Lion Beer, and it became a distributor at the end of Prohibition in 1933. The Salisbury Ice and Fuel Co. expanded and grew until after World War II when refrigerated train cars became common. The need for ice blocks declined as more modern refrigeration practices were put in place and by the 1960s, they closed.
In addition to its industrial history, the land serving as the foundation for this imposing structure was once very closely tied to a Civil War prison, and there are tales of activity associated with the land, the building, and the surrounding area. |
The Empire Hotel Block holds court over nearly half the block on 200 South Main Street in Salisbury, NC. While construction began in 1855, the Empire actually began life in quickly changing times when the first of the combined three buildings’ doors opened as the Boyden House in 1859. The railroad, which would become the central path of travel and commerce for the town, had just arrived. In its youth, the hotel was known as grand accommodations for sleeping during train stopovers and offered a fine breakfast for those looking for a meal when just passing through. At the end of the 1800s, the impressively featured ballroom was hosting local high society’s social life, attracting the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte McCanless.
By the 1900s, the hotel needed a facelift to stay current with the times. Famed architect Frank P. Milburn, who designed the Salisbury Depot, expanded and rejuvenated the hotel with a Beaux-Arts facade, and it took a new name, Central Hotel. Even Charlie Chaplin is believed to have swung by with his legendary, comedic style while on a tour for WWI Liberty Bonds. When jazz came of age in the 1920s, the ballroom hosted dance classes and then social dances before falling into the austerity of the 1930s. With the crunch of World War II, the hotel transitioned into a sensible housing option with most of the rooms being converted into apartments and the ballroom being necessary short-term housing. In the 1960s, after many of the location’s most colorful residents had passed on, the hotel closed. It was purchased by Mary E. Ragsdale who lovingly had the remnants of storefronts removed and the brick facade restored. While the portico and roof domes couldn’t be saved, the building was, fortunately, saved. Downtown Salisbury, Incorporated (DSI) purchased the building in 2007 and is hoping to continue preservation efforts toward the restoration of the Empire Hotel with several proposals, allowing an important and unique structure in the center of Salisbury’s downtown to once again contribute to the town center's vitality. In cooperation with Downtown Salisbury, Incorporated (DSI) and the City of Salisbury, North Carolina - Government. |
We’re wondering about the Wallace Annex, known by the family as “The Annex,” that served as a warehouse for the Wallace and Sons Wholesale Dry Goods it was connected to.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps suggest that the warehouse was built in at least two phases. It’s not on the 1902 map, but it appears on the 1907 map. The Salisbury Evening Post described the building as “an immense building” and “most spacious of its kind between Baltimore and Atlanta” in an article in 1906. The second phase expanded the annex; it’s not on the 1913 map, but appears on the 1922 map. The maps show a large dwelling was replaced during the second phase of construction; that dwelling can be seen on the Salisbury maps from 1885 through 1913. With all the reports of unexplained activity, we’re following the history and asking questions about the construction and the torn-down dwelling. Considering its size, was the dwelling used as a tenement house? And since some believe that Dr. F.L. Daniels, Salisbury’s only black doctor at that time, is responsible for some of the activity, we can’t help but wonder how close was his office? In the past few years, the facade has served as restaurant space, most notably Brick Street Tavern, and most recently Mambo Grill and Tapas. |
