Efird Building

Efird Building
"The Efird Building reflects a period of tremendous growth in downtown Burlington by virtue of its design as well as the company that built it. The Efird Department Store based in Albemarle, North Carolina, a pioneer in the ‘one price’, cast department store, developed into a chain of fifty-four stores in the Carolinas and Virginia. It was logical that this prospering firm would choose to build a store in booming Burlington at the turn of the 1920s. The building’s Neo-Gothic Revival style facade in white enameled tile, Burlington’s most distinctive storefront, was a fitting hallmark both of the success of the firm and of the city’s thriving downtown."

"Standing in the middle of a commercial block, the Efird Building reveals only its three-story main facade to the street. This facade, in contrast to the typical corbeled brick elevations of the surrounding, similarly scaled buildings, stands out by virtue of its materials and design. White enameled terra cotta tile sheathes the Neo-Gothic Revival style front, governed throughout by a symmetrical, tripartite organization. The facade consists primarily of glass."

Although the main facade has been altered, "The preservation of the highly distinctive enameled tile… minimizes the effect of [the] alterations upon the integrity of the Efird Building".

Excerpts taken from the Efird Building National Register Application, 1983.