West Main Street Commercial Historic District

Five brick storefront buildings along West Main Street in downtown Statesboro, Georgia, form a compact commercial district built between 1905 and 1923. One building is a single story and four rise two stories, together holding sixteen storefronts. The best known group, historically called the Brannen Building, is a row of five attached storefronts at the corner of Walnut Street. They step down the slope of the street and share a pressed-metal cornice, matching storefronts and segmental-arched upper windows. Corbeled brickwork and pressed-metal pilasters add modest decoration. Some storefronts were modernized in the 1970s and 1980s, yet the upper levels, scale and setback remain largely intact. The district was among the first commercial sections near the county courthouse and grew with the prosperity brought by the railroad and the Sea Island cotton trade. It is recognized for that commercial history and for its well-preserved early twentieth-century storefront architecture. Builder L. R. Blackburn is associated with construction here. The buildings still serve retail and business uses.