Does the Fisher Hamilton building, on the southeast corner of Highway 90 and Willing Street, deserve the historic marker asked for by the Santa Rosa Historical Society (SRHS)?
The Santa Rosa County Board of County Commissioners allowed the City of Milton Historic Preservation Board (HPB) to look into this issue and it may soon have an answer.
Chairman of the HPB, Mike Lewis, said the board will meet Thursday, November 12 and noted it only meets when matters come before the city needing its attention. However, he said he didn’t know if the board will make a decision. Until then, local historians Brian Rucker with the Pensacola State College Department of History, Languages, and Social Sciences, Ross Pristera, Historic Preservationist with the University of West Florida Historic Trust weighed in on the building, and Nathan Woolsey, local historian and former SRHS board member of 18 years. City of Milton Planning Director Randy Jorgenson conducted research as well as requested by the HPB and will have the report to the board Thursday.
Pristera evaluated the Fisher Hamilton building for the SRHS and offered a statement SRHS President Vernon Compton presented to the Board of County Commissioners when he asked for the historic marker. In the statement, Pristera said the building was constructed “by a founding family of Milton in 1877.”
However, the Pensacola Journal, in a July 15, 1906 article following the businessmen M. N. Fisher Jr. and C. E. Hamilton, noted the pair’s “new store is finished and the work of moving has begun.”
The publication said, “In addition to their stock of goods, they have the stock also that they purchased from Chaffin and Co. to move, but in the large building there will be ample room.” A July 4 article announced the purchase of the building by Fisher and Hamilton made by “J. D. C. Newton, manager of the Chaffin store.”
Filling in the gap, Woolsey said, “It was originally built as a store. William J Keyser died in 1877 so he never saw the building completed. His wife finished it, then in 1882 sold out to the Creary Mercantile Company and it remained a store through the 1880s. Then it became a cigar factory, then a tavern until the county went dry.”
Pristera said, “With historic buildings it gets tricky with dates and names. Usually, you go by the date built and usually the first or second business most well known in that location. That's why they picked that name…Fisher and Hamilton didn’t build the building but the name associated with it plays an important role.”
Regarding the interior, Pristera said his visit to the building’s basement revealed “historic graffiti, names and dates and cotton bail count.”
He went on to say, “The current facade has been there at least 100 years since 1915. That's what people know it for. Buildings are kind of living things. They grow and they shrink and they change with their use and the value we put on them.”
Mary Golden with the HPB was concerned about how much the structure was changed through renovations over the years. She said then, “guidelines tell us if you were to remove everything that has been altered to a building, then would it still be the original historic structure?”
City of Milton Planning Director Randy Jorgenson expressed the same concern. Between new bricks added, the addition in the rear of the building, the parapet Fisher and Hamilton added, and changed windows, he said, “(It) changed so dramatically over time that to say what's there is the oldest commercial building between Pensacola and Marianna, I believe, is inaccurate.”
Jorgenson examined Sanborn Fire Insurance maps provided online by the University of Florida of the Fisher Hamilton building. He said, “Encased within portions of those walls are bricks that date back to the building erected on that site in 1877. Having said that, that building has been altered significantly over time. Additions and reconstruction has been significant. The footprint has been changed, interior layout changed, use changed, the relationship with adjacent property changed. It’s not the building built there in 1877.”
Jorgenson said the building does still stand as a century-old structure, but, he said, “I don't believe it is any more significant or less significant than any other of the 102 others.” He said he supports the city working with property owners of those other buildings in the historic district to add plaques to them and create a historic walking trail of the district.
Pristera said he has seen buildings almost devoid of historic value where maybe all the siding is removed and only the wood studs remain from the original structure. He said it, “gets into a gray area, but this building, the walls remained always brick. What I saw on the inside didn’t concern me. I’ve seen a lot of buildings renovated. Every change tells a story, not just the pure essence of what the building was.”
Considering the fate of the Fisher Hamilton building in relation to the Florida Department of Transportation considering widening Highway 90, Rucker said, “As a historian, 100 years from now no one will say they miss a four-lane highway. This is the generation they're going to blame if something gets trashed. Sometimes we’re more concerned about convenience than heritage.”
Rucker said when he was on the National Trust Review Board for Florida a few years ago, the interior of a building brought before the board could disqualify it from the national register status since it had to be as it was.
“But the exterior,” Rucker said, “the shell keeps the historic ambiance of downtown from the early 1900s. You can always argue interior change but the public sees the historic shell…It hasn't been renovated enough on the exterior to disqualify it.”
Still, the HPB will decide if the county should apply for a historic plaque for the Fisher Hamilton building. Keep up with the Press Gazette to see if the decision is made Thursday. Look for the early floor plans of the downtown area including the Fisher Hamilton building at www.srpressgazette.com.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Experts weigh in on Fisher Hamilton