The Gibson Warehouse was owned by Right Reverend R. A. Gibson and built between 1904 and 1909. T. J. Collins and Sons firm designed the building and the original drawing files are preserved in the T. J. Collins and Sons Architectural Drawing Archive at Historic Staunton Foundation. The building features a brick masonry exterior with a heavy beam frame to support the warehouse loads.
The front façade is located along Middlebrook Avenue. The design is a symmetrical composition including two storefronts. Large brick masonry pilasters with stone caps at the roofline frame the façade. A corbelled cornice tops a three part proportional horizontal composition. The original wood storefronts are at the first floor; segmental arched openings with divided light sash windows at the second story, and the cornice tops the composition. All carefully arranged with diminishing proportion to ensure the building is visually balanced.
Of interesting note is the warehouse doorway located at the second floor. Historically the Warf Area served as one of the Valley’s main shipping and receiving terminals. As documented on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, wooden walkways once extended across Middlebrook Avenue from the railroad track sidings allowing heavy loads to be wheeled from boxcars into the warehouses. The insurance maps are a wonderful historical resource telling us a great deal about buildings. As noted on the maps and confirmed by the painted sign over the storefronts, the Gibson Warehouse was a hay and fertilizer store and later became a farm implement store.
Along Byers Street, the buildings show us their utilitarian facades. This area also included heavy warehouse doors and segmental arched window openings. Historically the rear of the building looked over the stables that once filled the area of what we now see as a large parking lot. Lewis Creek was channeled behind the buildings and was later paved over to create Byers Street. Some of the buildings along Lewis Creek and Middlebrook Avenue were mills using steam power. Water was drawn from the creek to the coal fired boilers providing steam to large stationary engines. You can imagine the combined industrial sounds of trains, steam engines, saws, horses, and wagons and the smell of livestock stables and that of burning coal.
The buildings within the Wharf area fell into marginal use by the 1960’s and 70’s and the complete area was threatened with demolition as part of an Urban Renewal plan. After much community discussion resulting in the founding if Historic Staunton Foundation, the Warf Area started to received the care and attention it deserved. The community realized the treasure they had at their fingertips.
In 1983, the Gibson Warehouse was renovated but that effort succumbed to a fire in 1987. After being slated for demolition, the building was saved, purchased and rehabbed as we experience it today.
The Wharf Historic District is Staunton’s first, surveyed in 1971 and listed in 1972. The district has become a destination for locals and visitors. Since the 1980s, the property values have risen over 270 percent due to rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of buildings and City investment in streetscapes and parking.