Liberty Row

Fourteen brick commercial buildings line the north side of the first block of Person Street in Fayetteville, stretching from Market Square to the triangular Liberty Point. The oldest is the Liberty Point Store, a Federal period building and the oldest known commercial building in the city, though its exact date is uncertain. A row of gabled brick stores followed after the fire of July 1846, with brick parapet walls meant to resist fire. Later Italianate and Romanesque Revival stores were added between 1896 and 1916. The row grew from the merging of Campbelltown and Cross Creek in 1783, when Person Street replaced Bow Street as the center of business. Silversmiths and pewterers once worked here, and the street was nicknamed Robber's Row for its many shops. Liberty Point marks the site where the Liberty Point Resolves were adopted in 1775. The area changed little after the main business district shifted to Hay Street in the early twentieth century.