The former Goldrings’ iconic doors -619 Milam Street.
There is a building that sits in the middle of the 600 block of Milam Street. An elegant-looking place, with marble on the facade and giant gold rings on the double doors. Those who remember a little about downtown’s department store past will know immediately that the gold rings are a giveaway as the building used to be the Goldring’s Department Store, one of the many department stores that called downtown home.
The 30,000+SF building is currently for sale for $675,000.
Built in 1961, Goldring’s, though historic, is one of the ‘younger’ buildings on the block. As we love to remind you, downtown is like an archeological dig and there are always layers that came before. In this case, it was a business called the Inn Hotel.
Our friends Mike and Mark Mangham at Twin Blends, LLC posted some fine photos of the beautiful Inn recently.
During the early 1900s and beyond, downtown was filled with hotels and boarding houses. The Inn would have sat next to the Majestic Theater, built initially as a vaudeville theater, just down from the Saenger Pharmacy and around the block from the Strand Theater. It also was within easy walking distance of a number of clothing, shoe, hat and other retail stores and a variety of cafes and restaurants.
Twin Blends has a special way of merging two eras together to show you both exactly where the structure was initially and what the street would look like had it survived. As lovely as the Goldring’s building is, having something like the ‘Inn’ today would be pretty spectacular.
A bustling street scene in 1920s downtown Shreveport.
