120-124 South Main Street

From the National Register nomination

Classical Revival four-story (or three stories with attic) building of stretcher-bond buff brick on the front and south side elevations and painted American-bond brick to the rear. The front parapet, which has a slight projection, is ornamented with a molded terra-cotta coping. In the fourth story are small round-arch 1/1 windows under running label moldings with molded terra-cotta trim and decorative keystones. Similar detail is expressed on the second and third-story segmental-arch windows. The two front storefronts are more recent; one (120) has a channeled wood surround with a curved corner. The south first-story elevation has banded piers formerly with large display windows between, now mostly filled in with high glass block windows. There are three non-original storefronts to the rear of the south elevation with addresses 10, 14 and 16 Newman Ave. On the May 1907 Sanborn map this building was identified as the "News Register Building" and was noted to be in the planning stages. The builder was apparently William M. Bucher & Son, who advertised in 1910 as the builders of the "Daily News Building." The names are close enough to suggest Bucher & Son were the contractors for the building, which George Keezell had built for the use of the newspaper. (In 1918 the building had another variant name: The Daily News-Record Building.) An architect's rendering shows the large display windows that originally lined the Newman Ave. elevation. In 1910 Imogen Avis Palmer's School of Music was one of the building's upstairs tenants, followed in 1927 by Hartman's School of Music, which offered "courses in Theory, Violin, Piano, Ensemble, Orchestra and Band Instruments." In 1927 the Valley Book Shop sold books, stationery, office supplies, and handled Kodak processing from the 120 storefront. Long-term tenants included Garber's Shoe Store (forty years) and the public library, which occupied the building from 1931 until 1951. The Harrisonburg Business College offered courses in accounting, secretarial work, and stenography here in 1955. (Rockingham County: Its Past and Present, Suter and Lyon, Images of America: Harrisonburg, 43)