111 Huron Ave
Port Huron, MI 48060, USA

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

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.