Lafayette Lumber Building

Lafayette Lumber Company was the successor to Vordenbaumen Lumber Company, which began operating in the mid 1800s on Hopkins Street. Early in the 1900s, the company was purchased by P. J. and Fred Voorhies and was renamed. Around 1925, Lafayette Lumber Company moved from its original Hopkins Street location two blocks away, to this larger site owned by Fred Voorhies. After World War II ended, Lafayette’s economic growth as the center for distribution of goods and services, and later as a regional center for the oil and gas industry advanced Lafayette Lumber Company’s business. Around 1958, they expanded at this site, and they built this new building in the progressive, Art Deco style. Art Deco takes its name from the “Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs” which was held in Paris in 1925 and was influenced by newly-developed building materials and technologies of the modern era. Art Deco elements of the Lafayette Lumber Building include  a prominent front corner entrance with a stepped, low relief parapet, a curved concrete block setback, flanked by smooth concrete columns and capped with a projecting curved canopy, smooth glazed brick, and large window openings arranged in linear fashion with concrete string courses.