Independence Building

Contributors:
J. A. Jones, builder (1908-1909); Frank Pierce Milburn, architect (1908-1909); Milburn, Heister, and Company, architects (1908-1909); William Lee Stoddart, architect (1927-1928); Michael Heister, architect (1908-1909)
Variant Name(s):

Realty Building

Dates:

1908-1909; 1927-1928 [addition]

Location:
Charlotte, Mecklenburg County
Street Address:

100-102 W. Trade St., Charlotte, NC

Status:

No longer standing

Type:

Commercial

Images Published In:

Mary Norton Kratt and Mary Manning Boyer, Remembering Charlotte: Postcards from a New South City, 1905-1950 (2000).
Daniel J. Vivian, “‘A Practical Architect’: Frank P. Milburn and the Transformation of Architectural Practice in the New South, 1890-1925,” Winterthur Portfolio (Spring 2005).

Note:

The 12-story skyscraper was the first steel-framed skyscraper in North Carolina and an icon of Charlotte’s urban ambitions. Originally known as the Realty Building, it was renamed in 1922 for the Independence Bank that occupied it. In 1928, New York architect William Lee Stoddart added two more stories. It was imploded in 1981 amid strong controversy.