This Building Has History ™
Name: Belk Dept. Store
Architect: UN
Builder: UN
Constructed: 1930 – C.M. Farrow, Manager
From the very beginning of Rock Hill, this lot, where the Belk Building now stands, was considered the highest spot on Main Street. An early building here was Gordon’s Hotel. Others in the neighborhood were engaged in the manufacture and sale of buggies and carriages. Although there are no surviving deeds from 1852 through the 1870’s, it is known that the premise was also the location of a frame house, a manufacturing plant, a showroom, a blacksmith shop, and possibly more. The enterprise conducted on this spot was an important business endeavor in early Rock Hill.
In 1858, the carriage factory was owned by Robert M. Kerr and Robert Patton (just west of this location), was insolvent by 1859. Patton was forced to sell in 1866-67, to Kerr’s brother-in-law, William L. Roach. Despite being industrious and frugal, hard economic times led to and auctioning of Kerr and Roach’s property in 1973. The plot then contained a dwelling house, the Duff store-house lot, and the office lot. This was all purchased by Captain A.E. Hutchinson, making him the principal land owner in downtown Rock Hill at the time.
A failed cotton factory led Captain Hutchinson in 1899 to sell lots to his nephew, Major Andrew Hutchinson White, including a drugstore, a jeweler, the Armory and the Library building. Not included in the sale was the Robertson house (Gordon’s Hotel), the frame house which had been there since the 1850’s, and had served as a home for the owner of the carriage factory.
Historian Wm. B. White, Jr., recorded in personal notes: “Ca. 1860, the Gordon House built by David Gordon, a native of Glasgow, Scotland – a large white two story house with large front porches. He shared an ice house and smoke house with the community.” WU Pettus Archives
Originally, the house had been a well-known hostelry owned by the Robertson family, and a gathering place for Rock Hill citizens on special occasions. After the Robertson’s moved in the 1880’s the house changed hands several times, to become the home of Dr. John William Fewell, the first mayor of Rock Hill and Bailey’s Tin Shop. A brick store building replaced the home after it was destroyed by fire in 1912, serving as the Roddey-Poe Mercantile Company. In more recent time, the building served as Belk’s department store began operating here in the early 1930’s.
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Roots and Recall LLC, The City of Rock Hill, The York County Arts Council, & The S.C. Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.
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