100 Court Avenue (Warfield, Pratt & Howell Co.)

Built: 1901

Design is attributed to Des Moines architectural firm Proudfoot & Bird who designed the 1909 addition on the east (by adding 3 bays)

1985 rehabilitation: Frevert Ramsey Kobes

NRHP 1985

Warfield, Pratt and Howell was a wholesale grocery firm

This brick warehouse is in the Chicago Style; the Warfield Warehouse has a tall first floor base and windows on second through sixth floors grouped within a three-story arch topped with a short cornice

Arrangement of east and north elevations is similar to Henry Hobson Richardson’s Marshall Field Wholesale Store (1885).

Interior structural support is wood columns (columns in the basement are 20 inches sq.; on top floor they are 8 inches sq.)

The exterior load bearing walls are 40” thick at the base and 30” thick at the top.

Had a hardwood trough from the upper floor to the main floor, according to the Iowa State Register in 1902

“This trough may be used in quick transportation of articles from the sixth floor to the loading tracks.  A turn is made on each floor, and this serves to check the speed with which an article descends.”

Originally, a railroad service stub line ran to the east side of the building connecting the warehouse with the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad.