Fox Building, 107-111 Huron Avenue, Port Huron, St. Clair County, MI

Significance: The Fox Building is a substantial alteration of the National Bank Building, a Neo-Classical Revival style commercial building constructed on this site in 1903-1904. The original building interior was gutted and the two principal facades, on Huron Avenue and Quay Street, were removed and replaced in 1936 to create a new two-story commercial building with two retail stores on the first floor and offices on the second floor. The Fox Building exhibits a combination of two important architectural styles of the 1930s - Art Moderne and Art Deco applied to a commercial building. From 1936 to 1992, the building housed the third store of the Fox Jewelry Company, a jewelry store chain that began in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1917 and evolved into a mid-sized midwestern retail chain. It was the last building to occupy one of the premier corners on Port Huron's major commercial street. The architect, Charles M. Valentine of Port Huron, did some notable school designs in Detroit and in the Port Huron area and was well-known in southeastern Michigan in the 1930s.
Survey number: HABS MI-391