B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company Building
A two-story red brick commercial building at the northwest corner of Locust Street and Garrison Avenue, with storefronts on both streets. The Locust front is divided into two broad bays, each with a wide band of tall multipane windows on the second floor framed in patterned brick. Brick piers with terra cotta torch ornaments divide the bays, and panels of rough-textured tapestry brick, framed by smooth brick borders, fill the spaces between the floors. The Garrison side continues the same treatment for two storefront bays, then four more bays of high windows run back toward glass-paneled garage doors at the rear. The roofline carries a deep cornice of buff terra cotta and brown brick: a row of round-arched panels with studded medallions, a band of beads and pointed leaves, a field of blocks set with round bosses, and a top course of interlaced ornament and leaf finials under a dentil cap. The ground floor now holds modern dark-framed storefronts, and a cast metal plaque near the entrance calls it the Ford Building.
Albert B. Groves, the St. Louis industrial architect, filed the plans in August 1913, and contractor B. J. Charleville finished the building in 1914. It was built with two storefronts for the auto trade on Locust Street. The Diamond Rubber Company and the B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company shared the corner storefront at 3001, selling tires, while the General Motor Car Company, a Hupmobile dealer, had the 3003 storefront by 1916. The Tevis Motor Company, a Ford dealer, soon replaced the Hupmobile agency at 3003. Diamond Rubber left by 1925 and Goodrich by 1928, and Tevis then took over the corner as well, selling Fords here until 1934, from the Model T to the first V-8s. The Auburn and Cord dealers also used the building briefly in the 1930s. The Welfare Finance Company followed in 1935, and the building stood empty by 1938. From 1939 it was a moving and storage depot for Sirkin and Needles and the Needles Moving and Storage Company, joined by Atlas Van Lines in 1955 and lasting into the 1960s. The storefronts were later rebuilt and the upper windows restored, and the building is back in commercial use.
