The Elbert H. Parsons Law Library (also known as the May and Cooney Dry Goods Company Building) is a historic commercial building in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...

. It was built in 1913 by the May and Cooney Dry Goods company to replace their building which was destroyed by a fire in 1911. The store occupied the building until 1931, when they went bankrupt due to the Great Depression.

J. C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Girl ...

moved into the building in 1934 and remained until 1966, when it moved to "The Mall" on University Drive. In 1973, it was purchased by the county and renovated to house a public

law library A law library is a special library used by law students, lawyers, judges and their law clerks, historians and other scholars of legal history in order to research the law. Law libraries are also used by people who draft or advocate for new l ...

. The building is a three-story structure with the façade faced in white glazed

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracot ...

. The street level has a large arch, decorated with a line of

bay leaf The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. It may come from several species of tr ...

clusters surrounded by alternating green and red blocks. The inside of the arch was converted from a storefront to large glass panes with a single central entrance in the 1973 renovation. The second and third floors each have five one-over-one

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s, with the third floor windows slightly smaller than the second. The building is topped with a projecting course of bay leaf

garland A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance. Etymology From the ...

s, a set of five colored panels in line with the windows, and a corbeled

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

with several rows of geometric designs. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

in 1980. The person for whom the building was ultimately named, Elbert H. Parsons (1907–1968), was a Huntsville-based judge of the Alabama Circuit Court.Parsons Is Appointed To Alabama Judgeship
, ''Chattanooga Daily Times'' (September 15, 1945), p. 7.

References

National Register of Historic Places in Huntsville, Alabama Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Commercial buildings completed in 1913 Buildings and structures in Huntsville, Alabama

Parsons Parsons may refer to: Places In the United States: * Parsons, Kansas, a city * Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Parsons, Tennessee, a city * Parsons, West Virginia, a town * Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingto ...

Law libraries in the United States 1913 establishments in Alabama Libraries established in 1973 {{Alabama-NRHP-stub