City Directories and History: The Montgomery Building, built in 1924, is significant in the areas of commerce and entertainment/recreation for its association with the commercial and entertainment history of Spartanburg from 1924 to 1958, including its association with the development of the post-1920s textile industry and with the Montgomery family, textile leaders in the South for more than 150 years. It is also significant architecturally as an excellent example of a Chicago skeletal frame construction skyscraper with a highly developed limestone facing, including more than 22,900 square feet of limestone-faced area on its western elevation. Well-known tenants flocked to the Montgomery Building. Many were textile companies but there were also many other cotton brokers and factories who had
Early postcard view of Morgan Square in downtown Spartanburg, S.C. Courtesy of the Martin Postcard Collection – 2014
offices in the Montgomery Building. The building also housed a theatre/auditorium space, and a radio station. The elaborate theatre opened with little fanfare but featured an interior box office, thirty-six foot wide proscenium, chandeliers, and a large balcony. It is the only historic movie theater remaining in Spartanburg. The Montgomery Building is a ten-story, nine-bay-wide skyscraper designed by Lockwood Greene & Company, an architectural and engineering firm from Boston, Massachusetts, that played a key role in the early development of the textile industry in Spartanburg. Lockwood Greene also owned one seventh of the total shares in the building and was a tenant from 1924 until 1966. The Montgomery Building was the tallest building in Spartanburg until the 1950s. Listed in the National Register May 25, 2011.
Courtesy of the Davie Beard Postcard Collection – 2017
View the complete text of the nomination form for this National Register property.(Courtesy of South Carolina Department of Archives and History)
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R&R HISTORY LINK: the Firm of Lockwood and Greene
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Courtesy of the Willis Collection – 2016
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