photograph by floyd tyler / preserver partners
Fred and Albert Pritchard would surely be pleased that their plumbing company building has survived, its exterior relatively unchanged, for more than a century. The former main entrance is at left. The doorway to the right is actually a gate that leads to a narrow alley between this building and the one next door.
Dear Vance: I’m restoring an old building at 433 Madison and hoped you could tell me something about its history. — F.T., Memphis.
Dear F.T.: For years I’ve admired the Pritchard Brothers Plumbing building, with its white terra-cotta façade, beautiful stained-glass signage, and matching pair of black wrought-iron doors. But hold on — a closer look reveals the doors aren’t identical. The left-hand door carries the company name in fancy ironwork and serveas as the entrance. The right-hand door, a bit less ornate, holds a blue shield with the initial “P” and is actually a gate, opening onto to a narrow alley that runs alongside the building.
These confusion should have been my first clue that telling the history of this company would be more challenging than I expected. I presumed it would be a simple matter of finding out who the Pritchard Brothers were, and then I could share their history by looking through old city directories, newspapers, and the vast archives of the Lauderdale Library.
Well, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered right away that two different companies in Memphis, operating at the same time, were called Pritchard Brothers. What were the chances of that? My hours, days, and weeks of research kept turning up references to both companies, and I got so bewildered that I had to slump in my La-Z-Boy with a cool towel on my forehead, resting my worn-out brain.
Operating out of such a small building, Pritchard Brothers landed the plumbing contracts for such local landmarks as the Municipal (later Ellis) Auditorium, the Randolph Building, Tech High School, Fairview Junior High School, First Methodist Church, the Adler Hotel, the Farnsworth Building, and Memphis General Hospital.
I finally got it straight. It seems brothers Lewis and John Pritchard owned a construction firm during the early 1900s and erected homes and even a few office buildings throughout Memphis. That’s the last time I’m going to mention them, though, because these two fellows weren’t related to the company F.T. has inquired about.
Instead, I will devote this column to Pritchard Brothers Plumbing, and the two brothers who started that firm were J. Fred Pritchard and Albert L. Pritchard. Both gentlemen were born in the 1870s in Joliet, Illinois, and came to Memphis around 1890.
According to the old city directories, in 1900 the brothers teamed up with a partner, James Evans, to open a plumbing, steam, and gas-fitting company. This was located at 71 Union Avenue — not 433 Madison.
So this brings up more confusion about the history of this company: How old is the fine-looking building on Madison? The Shelby County Assessor’s website gives a construction date of 1903, and this same date is repeated in other stories I’ve encountered about the Pritchards. But I don’t think that’s correct, and let me explain why.
photograph by floyd tyler / preserver partners
This rendering from Preserver Partners shows how the exterior might look if the ornate stained-glass windows are moved inside.
According to old city directories, from 1900 to 1915, the property at 433 Madison was a private home, owned by a series of five different families over the years. The homeowners included a barkeeper for the Gaston Hotel, a clerk for the Southern Railway, and a barber. In 1906, in fact, that barkeeper, a fellow named James Snell, ran a Commercial Appeal classifieds ad offering “For Rent — one six-room flat with bath, gas heat, attic, and reception hall.” This must have been a rather large house, if the rental area included a “reception hall.”
Meanwhile, during this time, those same city directories show that the Pritchard Brothers had opened their plumbing company Downtown — at 71 Union Avenue. Around 1910, they moved to larger facilities a few blocks east at 167 Union.
In fact, those same city directories don’t show the Pritchards moving to 433 Madison until 1916, when I presume the homes along that block were demolished to make way for businesses. Just next door, to the east, Nelson Plumbing, Heating, and Mill Supplies offered “steam goods, belting, hose, packing, pipe, fittings, valves, enamelware, soil pipe, and brass goods.” That short block of Madison had become a one-stop-shop for anybody in Memphis in need of plumbers and plumbing supplies.
Operating out of such a small building, Pritchard Brothers — still teamed with Evans — took on some of the best-known projects in our city. They were mainly involved in large, commercial enterprises, and over the years, they landed the plumbing contracts for such landmarks as the Municipal (later Ellis) Auditorium, the Randolph Building, Tech High School, Fairview Junior High School, Tennessee Ice and Coal Company, First Methodist Church, and Memphis General Hospital.
Wait — there’s more. Other projects during the 1920s and 1930s included the Adler Hotel, the DeSoto Garage, the Farnsworth Building (later called the Three Sisters Building), a large Studebaker dealership on Union, the Park Avenue Masonic Lodge — I mean, the list just goes on and on.
The Pritchards did quite well. Albert and his wife, Irma, lived in a nice house at 195 S. Belvedere. Fred and his wife, Mabel, confirmed my theory that, at some point, almost everyone I know or have written about has lived on Harbert. They and their son, Fred Jr., lived at 1800 Harbert.
Sometime in the 1930s, Albert Pritchard left the plumbing business to take an executive position with the Commerce Title Company, later moving to the National Bank of Commerce. He remained there until his retirement and passed away in 1956. When Albert left, the remaining brother, Fred, brought his son aboard. This was a smart move. A graduate of Georgia Tech, Fred took over the company when his father retired, and kept it in business until Pritchard Brothers Plumbing finally closed in the mid-1970s. Among their last major projects was the plumbing contract for the new Goldsmith’s Department Store in Laurelwood, which opened in 1962. In fact, I imagine this was the last project that involved the company co-founder, Fred Pritchard, who passed away the year before.
The son kept the company going but finally shut the doors in the mid-1970s. When he died in 1983, his newspaper obituary noted that he had remained active in many trade organizations in this area, such as serving as long-time president of the Civitan Club, but the headline focused on an accomplishment from his Boy Scout days in Memphis: “Liberty Bond Effort Pleased Presidents.” It seems Pritchard had been a member of Troop 22 here, and during World War I, had sold more than $450,000 in war bonds — an astonishing sum in those days.
The building on Madison changed hands in 1980. That year, Charles and Connie Manus, who operated the national franchise of ASI Sign Systems, purchased 433 Madison. Charles also specialized in architectural renderings, and Connie owned the Connie Hendrix & Associates advertising agency. They also leased portions of the 3,800-square-foot building to local artists and photographers in need of studios.
I should tell my other half-dozen readers, F.T., that you are the president and founder of an investment company called Preserver Partners, who bought the property several years ago with plans to rehab it as commercial space. The two-story building at 425 Madison (on the west side of the Pritchard building) serves as the Preserver Partners offices, so that block is seeing new life.
photograph by floyd tyler / preserver partners
The building’s spacious interior has been gutted, so new tenants can design it to fit their needs.
The interior of the old Pritchard Brothers building has been gutted. The façade will remain relatively unchanged, but the distinctive glass windows will be moved inside and used as a decorative element, unless the new tenants want to keep them in place. Whatever happens, I hope they are protected in some way. Windows like that would be hard to replace if damaged, and they survived a close call a century ago.
According to an old Commercial Appeal article, on the night of August 25, 1921, “a crew of drunken men in a large automobile destroyed several large plate-glass windows with bullets and bottles.” Among the targets that night, all in the same area, were the 7-1-5 Tire Company, the Madison Storage Garage, Paige Automobile Showroom, Nelson Plumbing Supply, and — yes — Pritchard Brothers Plumbing. The police “fired several shots at the party, which escaped, because their car was the fastest.”
I know what you’re thinking. Bullets, bottles, a fast car, and a police chase usually mean one thing: The Lauderdales — at it again!
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Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101
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