{"nrhp_refnum":"80001076","name":"Retail Credit Company Home Office Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"90 Fairlie St., SW","address_restricted":false,"city":"Atlanta","county":"Fulton County","state":"GA","lat":33.757192589000056,"lon":-84.38992037599996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-01-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A nine-story reinforced-concrete office building at 90 Fairlie Street, S.W. (at Poplar Street) in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Three stories were built in 1920 and six more were added in 1929-1930, to designs by Morgan, Dillon and Lewis.","why_significant":"The nomination cites its architectural merit as one of Atlanta's few surviving Art Deco buildings, set on a earlier classical base. It was also the first high-rise office building in Atlanta to be fully air-conditioned and had an innovative underfloor electrical and telephone duct system. It was the first headquarters of the Retail Credit Company, founded in 1899.","narrative":"Rising nine stories at Fairlie and Poplar Streets in downtown Atlanta, this concrete-frame office building was built in two stages. Three floors were completed in 1920 as the first home office of the Retail Credit Company, a consumer credit-reporting firm founded in 1899 by Cator Woolford and his brother Guy. Six more floors were added in 1929 and 1930 by the same architects, Morgan, Dillon and Lewis. The upper block is Art Deco, with limestone grids of columns and pilasters that extend above the roofline, carved filigree and a crenulated skyline edge. Below it sits a classical-style base. The building was notable for technology as well: it was the city's first fully air-conditioned high-rise office building, and it had an underfloor duct system for power and telephone service. The original master-clock system also survives. The company sold the building in 1954, and later owners included insurance firms. It stood vacant in 1979 before being sold for renovation.","period_of_significance":"1920, 1929","architect_builder":"Architects Morgan, Dillon and Lewis, Atlanta; general contractor Southern Ferro Concrete Company, Atlanta","architectural_style":"Art Deco (upper six stories) over a Neo-classical/mercantile base","criteria":[],"status_note":"Vacant since January 1979 when the last tenant left; sold in September 1979 to a new owner who planned renovation for offices and ground-floor retail/food service.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:41.360907-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/80001076.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80001076/9a1984bc9a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80001076/9a1984bc9a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Ganeshk","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atlanta_Retail_Credit_Company_Home_Office_Building_2012_09_15_04_6154.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Ganeshk</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atlanta_Retail_Credit_Company_Home_Office_Building_2012_09_15_04_6154.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"82002416","name":"Fairlie-Poplar Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/georgia/fairlie-poplar-historic-district-82002416/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93208310","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q134331272"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/fulton-county/retail-credit-company-home-office-building-80001076/"}