Ely and Walker Dry Goods Company Building

A seven-story wholesale block of brick and terra cotta over a steel frame, among the largest buildings on Washington Avenue. Its Classical Revival ornament is carried in terra cotta, with broken pediments, garlands and a foliated cornice.

The Ely and Walker Dry Goods Company built this wholesale house in 1906–1907 to designs by Eames and Young, on the corner of Washington Avenue and Robbins Lane. The firm grew out of Ely, Walker and Company, founded in 1880 by Frank Ely and David Davis Walker, which became one of the leading dry goods wholesalers west of the Mississippi. Within a few years of completion the building was described as having the largest merchandise floors in America. Burlington Industries acquired Ely and Walker after World War II. By 2001 the building was known as Washington Square, with a Gold’s Gym on the ground floor, and it has since been converted to apartments as the Ely Walker Lofts. It is a contributing building in the Washington Avenue Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.