|
|
- Downtown Clarksburg Has Become Home to Scores of Professional Businesses, Government
Offices and Fine Eateries
- Clarksburg is the County Seat of Harrison County. The Harrison County Courthouse is
Located Next-Door to The Goff Building
- Downtown Clarksburg Has Installed a Brand New Streetscape, New Light Fixtures,
New Pavers, and a Brand New Outdoor Sound System to Maximize the Enjoyment of this Historic and Beautiful Location.
- General
Stonewall Jackson Was Born In Downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia--Right Across the Street from The Goff Building
- Downtown
Clarksburg is Home to Several Unique Boutiques!
- The Federal Biometric Fusion Operation is Located in Downtown Clarksburg,
Just a Few Doors Down from The Goff Building.
- Also Located in Downtown are Many Great Bars and Restaurants...in Addition
to Banks, Brokerage Houses, Churches, and Historic Edifaces
|
|
GROUND
WAS BROKEN FOR THE GOFF BUILDING ON JUNE 28, 1910
Nathan Goff, Jr. had a life-long love affair
with Clarksburg. Born Feb. 9, 1843, in Waldomore at 400 West Pike Street, the son of Waldo P. and Harriet L. Moore Goff,
Jr., graduated from Clarksburg's Northwestern academy, established a law practice in the town in 1865 and began a career that
would make him the most prominent and wealthiest citizen of the town. By 1905, when income from oil sales alone in ten years had totaled $1,077,991.52, Goff had
invested heavily in his hometown. In 1897 he and other Waldo P. Goff heirs had given land for North Fourth Street
leading from West Pike Street to the Fourth Street Bridge which Goff built himselt to open up his land in Glen Elk.
In 1901, Goff built the Elkbridge Building, a $60,000 brick structure at the north end of the Fourth Street Bridge.
In 1903 Goff and associates of Goff formed the Clarksburg Gas and Electric Company and won the franchise to furnish gas and
electricity to the City for thirty years; and in the same year, Goff built the Oak Hall Building, a $35,000 office and
apartment building on West Main Street. Between 1901-1904 Goff spent more than $400,000 to erect the Waldo Hotel,
one of the largest and most elaborate hotels in West Virginia and built next door to the house where Nathan Goff, Jr. had
been born and reared. Goff liked to build
fine buildings. By 1907 he was ready to replace with a modern structure the brick office building he had erected in
1891 on the corner of West Main and Court streets, and next door to the Harrison County Courthouse. Goff's work had
sent him frequently to Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina because those states plus West Virginia were
under his jurisdiction as judge of the U.S. Circuite Court for the Fourth Judicial Circuit. As senior circuit judge,
after November 1893, Goff had assigned cases over which the seven district judges in the circuit would preside at a time when
custom dictated that judges sit in cases outside their respective districts when services were needed. Goff traveled
the circuit frequently as judge from 1892-1913. He admired the work of Architect Frank P. Milburn which he saw reflected
in Union Station the dome of the Sourht Carolina State House, and other buildings in Columbia, S.C., for Milburn designed
at least two hundred fifty major structures in the South.
Frank Pierce Milburn (1898-1926), a native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, practiced as an architect in Louisville, Ky., 1884-1889;
in Kenova, W. Va., 1890-1895. He moved to Charlotte, N.C. in 1895 to be architect for the Southern Railroad Company,
and in the same year won the contract as architect for the Mechklenburg County Courthouse at Charlotte. He built the
first steel frame building in North Carolina and the first steel frame building in South Carolina, where he moved from Charlotte
to take up residence in Columbia, the state capital.
In his first fifteen years of practice, Milburn designed 19 railroad stations, 26 County Courthouses, 15 residences, 9 college
buildings, including 5 for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, plus offices, churches, banks and schools.
"He is said to have acquired in a few years the largest architectural business south of the Mason and Dixon Line."
Milburn employed MIchael Heister as designer and together the two opened "Milburn, Heister & Co., Architects"
circa 1904 in Washington, D.C. The Washington firm executed designs in Washington for the Department of Commerce Building,
the Navy Building,, the House of Representatives Office Building and Lansburg's Department Store. "Stylistically,
Milburn was typical of 19th Century eclectics and at other times adopting the classical attitudes of the Neo-Classical Revival
or Beaux Arts Classicism...His notable achievement was in skyscraper construction iwth the vertical emphasis of a tall structure
terminating in an ornate and usually wide overhanging cornice.
Goff hired Milburn in 1908 to draw up plans for his office building. A newspaper in 1909 reported: "The Goff
Building will be 9 stories in height...The old buildings at the corner of Main and Court streets have already been razed and
the excavation for the foundation is expected to be begun at a very early date." Nov. 11, 1909, Manufacturers'
Record, an architectural trade journal, published a sketch of the structure projected by Milburn & Heister Architects
to be build in Clarksburg. Ground was broken
for the Goff Building June 28, 1910. Representatives from Milburn & Heister rode the B&O Railway often to Clarksburg
for "the firm was expert, relieving the client of all worry". "Milburn was a conscientious architect
who felt that standards within the architectural profession should be as high as those in medicine and law. It was his
belief that the architect is more important than doctor or lawyer, since the architect is responsible for the supporting structure,
practical planning, sanitary conditions, heating, ventilation and acoustice, and the economics in addition to the politics
in the erection of the building." A son of Frank P. Milburn said of his father: "For 25 years he traveled
30,000 miles a year in sleepers, doing a day's work each day, and then moving at night to the next stop. He felt this
necessary to explain his drawings to the various contractors and to see that they were properly executed. The contractors who executed Milburn's plans for the Goff Building
had at their fingertops expert workmen and local sources of supply because they knew the Clarksburg turf. H.W. Elliott
and E.L. Winchell had build structures in the town since 1903; "Contractors Elliott and Winchell are prominent in their
line, having had a wide and successful career. They came to West Virginia 8 years ago and among the monuments to their
ability are the (Harrison County) jail and sheriff's residence (1905), the Empire Building (1906), 2 schoolhouses, and V.L
Highland's residence circa 1904 here besides the Goff Building. They have also erected large buildings in Wheeling,
Charleston, Mannington and other West Virginia places."
After excavating, "The foundations under foundations for the walls and for the steel columns were reinforced with 2 courses
of lugged and twisted steel rods laid right angles and worked into the concrete foundations or footings. The foundations
were tested with a dead load of 6,000 pounds to the square foot for 48 hours without settlement, thus showing the stability
of the ground sustaining the building."
The building of steel frame fireproof construction with reinforced concrete floors and gypsum block partitions that rose above
the foundations fronts 86 feet on West Main Street and 125 feet on Court Street. The exterior walls are stone in the
lower stories, impervious press brick above. The roof is of steel construction with book tile covered by slate. (Note:
the Glen View brick in the Goff Building was manufactured in Clarksburg) " On the first floor is a modern equipped banking room and five stores, and the upper stories
contain 193 offices. There are two iron and marble stairways from the ground to the top floor, also two traction type
high-speed electric passenger elevators, and a glass and bronze mail chute the full height of the building. Each office
contains a porcelain lavatory, with hot and cold water, electric light and telephone connections, and and gas for dentists. "The banking room is finished in marble and bronze, has large fireproof
valuts; the main entrance corridor has marble floors and wainscoting, ornamental beams and cornices, etc.; and all the corridors
in the upper floors are finished in marble mosaic. All the interior wood finish is of oak and birch. The building
contains a separate pressure system to insure water to all parts of the building at all times, also contains a fire line stand
pipe with hose connections on each floor, and all plumbing and electric light fixtures, as well as all hardware are of the
best manufacture. The building is heated by an overhead direct steam system, using natural gas for fuel." The contractors were proud that they could turn over to the
owner in January, 1911 the building completed without a single serious injury or loss of life "which is an unusual condition
on buildings of this size, where so many men of various trades are employed, showing the contractors were careful and diligent
in every particular." "It is a
massive structure as a few figures furnished by Contractor Elliott show. There were 3,826 cubic yards of dirt in the
excavation, 48 railroad carloads of crushed limestone were used, 21 railroad carloads of Portland Cement, 41 cars of sand,
982,000 bricks, 11 cars of furnace slag, 5 cars of fireproof partition blocks, 12 cars of wall plaster, 1 car of plaster paris,
1 car of roofing slate, 1 car of galvanized iron cornice, 776 tons of structural steel, 56 tons of ornamental iron, 18 tons
of glass, 8 1/2 tons of sashweights, 2 cars of framing lumber, 4 cars of flooring, 2 cars of interior finishing lumber, 55
tons of radiators, 31 tons of steam pipe, 205 tons of vitreous china lavatories, 1,156 gallons of paint, 32 tons of Alabama
marble for terrazzo floors and marble mosaic and 90 barrels of chandeliers for gas and electric lights." The geographic location for many of the concerns that supplied
help in erecting the Goff Building shows the hand of Architect Milburn: B. McKenzie, Greensboro N.C., heating; The McClamrock
Marble & Tile Co., Greensboro, N.C., marble mosaic and terrazzo work: W.T. Vandergrift, Charlottesville, Va., Inspector;
J.E. Moss Iron Works Co., Hamilton Ohio, ornamental ironwork; Evens Marble Co., Baltimore, Md., marble floors and wainscoting;
E.J. Myer & Co., Hamilton, Ohio, vault or sidewalk light; Union Bridge Co., Rutherford, N.J. bronze work in banking room;
Diebold Safe & Lock Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., structural steel; The John O'Hare Co., Clarksburg, plumbing; Cutter Mail Chute
Co. Rochester, N.Y., mail chute; S.C. Crow, Bellaire, Ohio, painting; Otis Elevator Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., elevators. The Daily Telegram of Jan. 30, 1911 reported "only a few
touches remain to make the completion of the new Goff Building, a 9-story skyscraper, here complete and business firms and
professional men are already busy moving into the great structure." Moving into the first floor banking room was the Farmers Bank; into the 2 storerooms facing West
Main Street were williams-Coffman Hardware Co., and Bane and Bond (millinery); into store rooms on the Court Street side.
Haymay Greenhouse Co., Ernest Siers (haberdashery) and P.M. Long (insurance). Moving into offices on the 2nd floor were
Dr. ARnett and Gaston, Dr. L.F. Kormann, Dr. F.B. Stathers, Dr. H.H. Haynes, Dr. R.A. Haynes, Taney Harrison, E.D. Lewis,
W.E. Morris, G.H. Montgomery. MOving into offices on the 3rd floor were Post & Reger, John Ross, Jr., Davis &
Davis (John J. and John W.), Osman E. Swartz, E.B. Templeton, Charles W. Mooer. Moving into offices on the 4th floor
were Charles B. Johnson, G.M. Hoffheimer H.H. Staggers. Moving into offices on the 5th floor were Drs. D.B. Davis and
J.F. Williams, MIss F. Huber, J.W. Robinson, Pardee & Curtin Lumber Co., Moving into offices on the 6th Floor were Fidelity
Casualty Co. (Ledru Tracey) C.C. Davis, Finley and Burnside, Miss M.D. Freeman, Swager Coal Co. Moving into the 7th
Flor were J.B. Hoffmier, Drs. H.E. Sloan and R.V. Lynch, E.F. Garrett, W. Frank Stout, R.E. Parrish. Moving into offices
on the 8th Floor were B.M. Despard, Edward C. Bassel, S.R. Bentley, and Thomas Shaw. Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Co.
(Samuel Shrader). Seventeen rooms on the 9th Floor were not yet rented in January, 1911. Milburn built for the $200,000 contract price which later increased to $250,000,
a structure that has served Clarksburg almost unchanged for (at the time of this writing) 74 years, and a structure that has
been a money-maker for Nathan Goff, Jr. and his estate through the years. "...the exterior of the building is precisely
the same as originally constructed and the interior is basically the same with a few minor adjustments on some of the floors
to accommodate some of the larger firms. The marble stairways and marble floors are still intact, and also the interior
wood finish." By: Dorothy Davis. From:
"Clarksburg: A BiCentennial Album" 1785-1985.
|