128 West Market Street

From the National Register nomination

Accretive flat-roofed brick building with a 1935 original three-story section (southwest corner) and 1940 three-story (northwest end) and 1970 two-story (southeast end) additions that give the building an overall L form. The 1935 section has a stretcher-bond front and American-bond sides, a concrete foundation, recessed façade bays, and industrial metal-frame windows. A yellow and green painted metal sign reading "Wetsel's Seeds" projects above a suspended metal awning. Other features of this section include an early wood and glass panel freight door on the front, a post-1960 one-story garage addition on the west side of brick and perforated cinder block construction, and two roof-top elevator housings with brick-pattern metal siding. The 1935 section was extended on the north end in 1940. The 1940 section has industrial metal-frame windows in three-story vertical recesses with corbeled tops, a brick roof-top elevator housing, and large metal hoppers on the east side. The 1970 section has a stretcher-bond brick veneer (presumably over cinder block), tinted plate glass windows, large green plastic letters on the south side reading "Wetsels," and a cantilevered metal awning over aluminum and plate glass display windows on the south side. The 1970 section has a wood-shingle mansard, a one-story frame addition with weatherboard siding, and other alterations from the early 1990s. The L form of the building embraces a parking lot and nursery display area. Wetsel's Seed Co. was founded by Daniel M. Wetsel who in the first decade of the 20th century began experimenting with plant and seed production at his Rockingham County property "Green Island Seed Farm." At first he sold his products from a wagon parked on Court Square. In 1911 he opened a seed store in the Ritter Building (421 N. Main). The oldest (southwest) section of the facility at the present location was erected in 1935 by the Nielsen Construction Co. and was used initially as an office, seed mixing facility, and warehouse. In 1939 the facility was described as "one of the most up-to-date seed houses and cleaning plants in the state." The building was extended to the rear in 1940 and the southeast wing was added in 1970 (these sections were also built by Nielsen). In the early 1990s Wetsel's parking lot across W. Market St. was taken for the construction of the county jail, and subsequently alterations were made to the 1970 wing to reorient the building to the present parking arrangement. Now Wetsel Garden Center. Note: The building is misidentified as 128 W. Water St. in the 1982 survey. (Robert Wetsel; Tom Wetsel; Huynh, "Wetsel Seed Co.")