Daugherty Furniture Building, commercieel gebouw in Tennessee, Verenigde Staten van Amerika
The Daugherty Furniture Building is a five-story commercial structure in Clinton with two basement levels below ground. Its exterior features approximately 99,000 pounds of hand-chiseled stone from nearby quarries, laid by local craftsmen Gilbreath and Sebastian Marie with exceptional care. The interior has an inverted step pyramid design where walls grow progressively thinner toward upper floors, with basement walls reaching two feet six inches thick. Architect Clem H. Meyers designed the structure with rectangular steel windows and simple, functional proportions reflecting wartime minimalism.
Construction occurred between 1938 and 1942 as Clinton's population surged and demand for household goods skyrocketed from incoming workers tied to the secret Oak Ridge facility during World War II. The store operated for decades as the county's primary one-stop shopping destination for furniture, appliances, and repair services until closing in 1985. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, recognizing its significance in documenting local wartime growth and commercial development.
The building served as a gathering place where neighbors met and the community grew together over decades. The Daugherty family and their staff created a hub where customers became part of the local social fabric.
The building sits in downtown Clinton and is easy to reach on foot from nearby streets. You can view the exterior stonework and architectural details clearly from the street, observing the solid construction and rectangular proportions of the design.
The building's interior features an inverted step pyramid design where the basement foundation walls measure two feet six inches thick, gradually narrowing as they ascend to the thinner walls of upper floors. This unusual structural approach was remarkably efficient for the era and revealed clever engineering that most visitors never notice when walking past.
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