Heritage Buildings - Seventh Avenue

Higgenbotham Drug Store - 430 7th Avneue

Building Code 574.D.7
Construction
Date
ca. 1890
Origins Steel's Drug Store
Description
The Higginbotham Drug Store Building occupies a central place in a strip of brick-fronted buildings, most constructed in the 1890’s, that line the west side of Seventh Avenue at the heart of Virden’s Heritage District.
Heritage Value
The Higginbotham Drug Store Building, dating from before 1891, is valued for its connection to the John Higgenbotham family and their Drug Store business, which spanned four generations and eight decades. Mr. Higgenbotham, whose earlier building on Nelson Street burned down, bought this modest building, with its restrained Romanesque-Revival features, from Mr. Steel, also a druggist in 1896.

Character Defining
Elements
Key elements that define the exterior heritage character of the Higginbotham Drug Store Building include:

- it rectangular business-block form
- its brick-faced façade with a complex corbel table and subtle quoins.
- its pleasant window treatment that includes round-arched windows with artfully constructed brick dripmoulds and capstones.

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Higginbotham Drug Store Building interior include:
- some original woodwork and detailing on the main level
- a vacant second floor residence left largely in its original form and a large basement with stone walls – veneered with some of the first brick manufactured in Virden.
Site History Formerly on This Site:

Century Pizza before Echo Books  (2009)
Higgenbotham's Drug Store

Origins – Mr. Steele bought out Dr. Gemmill’s supply of drugs and set up here prior to 1891
Bought by John Higgenbotham in 1896. At that time it was Steele’s Drug store. In the family as a drug store for at least 4 generations. Appears in an 1891 photo.

Additional Information

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Photo Courtesy Pioneer Home Museum



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