Commercial Building (Charles Hotel Block)

The largest commercial building in Gate City stretches nearly an entire block. Originally known as the Charles Hotel Block, it represents a surge in commercial activity in Gate City after the arrival of the South Atlantic and Ohio Railroad in 1887. The two-story brick building, typical of hotels built in small towns during the late nineteenth century, has a facade divided into five individual stores (now remodeled with plate-glass windows), each with their own entrance. Near mid-block a door gave access to the second-floor rooms of the former hotel, and the entrance is marked by a pilastered bay. Tying the building together are a pressed-metal storefront cornice between floors and a corbeled brick cornice across the top of the front parapet. Since fire and demolition have destroyed several other late-nineteenth-century commercial buildings along Jackson Street, this is the best-preserved surviving example.