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The I.E. Dupont Building, which
served as a laboratory and offices, is located at 427 West Fourth Street in
Charlotte's Third Ward. The building is among the last of large
industrial structures built near the center of the city. While a good
collection of industrial buildings still exist in Third Ward to the west of
the Southern Railroad, the Dupont Building and the neighboring
Virginia
Paper Company Building are the only large surviving examples of
industrial buildings in the section of Third Ward bounded by the Southern
Railroad and Mint Street. Until much of it was destroyed during Urban
Renewal, this section of the city was home to factories and warehouses
dependent on railroad transportation, with workers' houses scattered among
the industrial buildings.
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The Dupont Building, which faces
north, is located across West Fourth Street from the Charlotte Post
Office (former). The flat roofed masonry building features a
strict symmetry, and is composed of a three-story principal section,
bordered by two 2-story wings. The brick are laid in a modified
American bond, with alternating headers and stretchers in the bonding
courses. On the facade and sides the brick are laid atop a high
reinforced concrete base. The principal section is nine bays wide,
with a three-bay wide frontispiece constructed of sandstone blocks and
topped with a simple coped cap. Granite steps lead to double
metal-frame doors (now boarded over), bordered by narrow window openings
(now boarded over). The individual bays are recessed slightly,
with every recessed bay on each of the three floors containing a single
metal-framed double-hung window. The sills of the first-floor
window (now boarded over) are integrated into the building's tall
concrete base. Second and third story windows feature a simple
sandstone sill. The tops of the bays terminate in a sandstone
band, above this a coped stone band caps the wall.
The two-story side wings extend
forward past the facade of the principal section the width of two bays.
The side wings are virtually identical. Each of the wings are four
bays wide and ten bays deep. The concrete base, window sills, and
sandstone bands and caps are the same as those found on the principal
section. With the exception of the coped stone cap that extends
around the top of the buildings walls, the limited ornamentation and
architectural accents found on the facade and side elevations is absent
from the rear elevation. As they do on the facade, the side wings
extend back beyond the rear elevation of the three-story principal
section. A shallow wing extends from the center of the rear
elevation containing and elevator shaft. Dual metal stairway,
perhaps fire escapes, extend from the rear of building.
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