{"nrhp_refnum":"94000034","name":"McMinn Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2--6 W. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brevard","county":"Transylvania County","state":"NC","lat":35.23399422500006,"lon":-82.73417029299998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-02-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story common-bond brick commercial building with three ground-floor storefronts and a second-floor rental office suite, at the north corner of the town square in Brevard, Transylvania County, North Carolina. It was built in 1899 for Nathan Van Buren McMinn.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is the first brick commercial building in Brevard and the senior member of the brick commercial buildings that transformed the county seat's center after 1898. It is regarded as the oldest and finest commercial building in Brevard, with largely intact Mesker Brothers iron storefronts, corbelled brickwork, and original second-story office interiors.","narrative":"Built in 1899 for merchant Nathan Van Buren McMinn, the two-story common-bond brick building stands at the north corner of the town square in Brevard, at the crossing of Broad and Main streets. Its ground floor holds three storefronts with cast-iron fronts manufactured by Mesker Brothers of St. Louis, each about twenty-five feet wide, and a separate doorway leads to a stair serving eighteen second-floor rental offices arranged off a U-shaped corridor. The Main Street facade has corbelled brickwork, and the building was the first brick commercial building erected in the county seat, following the 1873 brick court house. It was built as a rental investment and housed the Brevard Banking Company in its early years. It is regarded as the oldest and finest commercial building in Brevard. Its significance rests on its commercial role in the town's late-nineteenth-century expansion and on its architecture, notably the largely original second-floor office interiors and surviving pressed tin ceilings and shelving in the storefronts.","period_of_significance":"1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Storefronts are occupied by retail and service tenants, and the second-floor offices are in use; the document states the building remains largely as built.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:42.264828-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/99/7184/47718499/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/94000034.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000034/f92789533d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000034/f92789533d-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Skye Marthaler","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McMinn_Building.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Skye Marthaler</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:McMinn_Building.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718499","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMinn_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19987063"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/transylvania-county/mcminn-building-94000034/"}