A relatively late addition to the port, this commercial warehouse is one of more eclectic and inventive buildings in the area. Its design combines Romanesque Revival architectural elements with terra-cotta decoration reminiscent of Art Nouveau. Easy to manipulate and inexpensive to produce, terra-cotta allowed flexibility and creativity in ornamentation. The warehouse is decorated with tobacco plant and leaf motifs which reveals the commom turn-of-the-century practice of incorporating American motifs into a stylistic language imported from Europe. This decorative program announces the building's function in symbolic terms.

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Tobacco Warehouse
84-85 South St., G. Curtis Gillespie (1902)