Telegram Building, 227 Walnut Street, Harrisburg, Dauphin County, PA

Written data includes photocopies of floor plans, photographs, & advertisements.
Significance: The building's significance is three-fold; architecturally, industrial, and technological. The most significant feature is the north facade in the Queen Anne Revival style. Probably constructed over a cast iron frame, the facade of wood, brick, iron, and glass (clear, striated, and colored) retains almost absolute integrity above street level. Existing illustrations document the street level facade very well. The remaining elevations are strictly utilitarian brick walls pierced with windows and doors on two side (west and south). The east wall is a blank party wall. Very up-to-date when it was first constructed, the building was probably influenced by the Philadelphia Inquirer building on Market Street in Philadelphia. The Telegram Building was built with both electrical and gas lighting, steam heat, hot and cold running water, toilet facilities, and an Otis elevator. Many of these original features remain. Built to house a thriving Sunday newspaper, The Telegram, the structure subsequently housed various telephone and telegraph companies and served as a regional headquarters for the Atlantic Refining Company. Remaining in the building is the original elevator mechanism designed to be steam driven which was converted to electricity sometime after 1902.
Survey number: HABS PA-5370
Building/structure dates: 1887- 1888 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1965 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1902 Subsequent Work