To spot the Hobbs Building, look for a striking red-and-brick four-story structure right on the corner, with big, jutting bay windows and a unique five-sided turret that stretches up above your head.
Ah, you’ve made it to the famous Hobbs Building! Take a moment and imagine the year is 1895. The air smells like fresh-cut wood and new stone, and there’s a steady hum of horse-drawn carriages outside. Albert Hobbs-part furniture master, part undertaker, and total go-getter-wanted something that would leave people’s jaws on the sidewalk. With its towering turret (once topped with an onion dome), dramatic bay windows, and brick arches, it must have looked like something from a storybook. The stonemasons were busy fitting limestone into those deep sills, and the terra cotta details sparkled in the summer sun. Imagine popping in to buy a sofa, only to be reminded you could get, well, a coffin too! Talk about one-stop shopping.
The history here gets even wilder-on the Fourth of July in 1910, a daredevil actually dove from the top of that turret into a pool just six feet deep! Clearly, people back then took “making a splash” pretty literally. For decades, this corner buzzed with stories-shoppers, laughter, maybe a few ghostly creaks at night-before falling quiet for almost 30 years. Now, thanks to a modern-day revival, the Hobbs Building stands proud again, newly restored and ready for its next chapter. So, if these walls could talk... they might just dare you to try that jump yourself-though I wouldn’t recommend it!
