Since 1913

The Witcher Block

A meat warehouse, a drugstore and a biscuit company — the working history behind every brick of VANTAGE Art Flats.

546–550 Craghead Street · Danville, VA

Our Story

Three Buildings, One Block

In 1913, J.G. Witcher put up a row of brick commercial buildings on the 500 block of Craghead Street — the street of Danville’s Southern Railway depot, backed by the rail yard.

VANTAGE Art Flats occupies the Swift and National Biscuit buildings at its east end. The drugstore between them collapsed decades ago — and became the courtyard at the heart of the hotel.

550 Craghead St.

Swift & Company

Built in 1913 as part of the Witcher Block, 550 Craghead first housed the Swift and Co. Warehouse, the wholesale meat outlet of Chicago meatpacker Swift & Company, served by a railroad spur off the Danville rail yard behind the block.

Built as
Wholesale meat warehouse on a rail spur
Today
About half the guest suites
  • What it did. Records list it as “Swift and Co. Warehouse Wholesale Meat.” Town warehouses like this one received chilled meat by refrigerated rail car and sold it on to local markets and restaurants.
  • The rail connection. The spur ran right beside the building. Hurricane Michael washed most of what remained of it away in 2018, and the creek behind the hotel now runs where the rail yard once stood.
  • Look for. The original meat-freezer doors, restored. The old loading door is now a window whose frame mimics the original door.

Gustavus Swift incorporated the company in Chicago in 1875 and built it on refrigerated rail cars — about 5,000 of them by 1910.

A salvaged white cold-storage door with its original heavy iron hinges and latch

548 Craghead St.

C.T. Eldridge’s Drug Store

C.T. Eldridge’s Drug Store opened in the 1913 Witcher Block between the Swift and National Biscuit buildings. Decades ago its lower section collapsed and was cleared out; its shell is now the hotel’s triangle-shaped courtyard.

Built as
Pharmacy
Today
The courtyard, breezeway and “Eldridge” the elephant
  • The facade. The drugstore’s street front was renovated in fall 2018 — the first chapter of the 500 block restoration.
  • Today. A shared open-air courtyard, linked to the buildings on either side by an enclosed breezeway.
  • Look for. The red elephant by Italy’s Cracking Art group. Its name, “Eldridge,” honors the store that once stood here.

The pharmacist is known today only by his initials, C.T. — his full name and the years the store operated are still a mystery.

The red elephant sculpture in the sunlit brick courtyard created where a collapsed drugstore once stood

546 Craghead St.

National Biscuit Company

Built in 1913 on the far side of the drugstore, 546 Craghead first housed the National Biscuit Company distribution warehouse. Next door, at 542–544, was the Virginia City Motor Co.

Built as
Biscuit and cracker distribution warehouse
Today
The remaining guest suites
  • Today. It holds the rest of the guest suites, reached from the Swift building by the glass catwalk over the courtyard.
  • The name. The company didn’t become “Nabisco” until 1971. In its warehouse days, the sign out front would most likely have read “National Biscuit Co.”

Formed in 1898 from a merger of bakeries, the National Biscuit Company was known for Uneeda Biscuit and, from 1912 — the year before this building went up — the Oreo.

Inside the glass-walled bridge connecting the two buildings, with steps leading up between exposed brick walls

The Neighbors

The 500 Block of Craghead Street

A row of early-1900s brick storefronts backed by the rail yard — “unique in architectural character,” as the city put it in 2016. Newspapers from 1906 on record more than 40 businesses here, and the buildings were subdivided and altered many times over.

518

Built by John Gibson as a tobacco prizery; later Tate & Thomas Wholesale Grocers, then a small shirt factory

1876

528–532

Hughes Building, by Charles E. Hughes — replacing a saloon and variety theatre

1910

534–536

William C. Venable building

c. 1904

538–540

J.G. Witcher’s wood and coal yard, 1903–1912

—

542–544

Witcher Block: Virginia City Motor Co.

1913

546

Witcher Block: National Biscuit Company

1913

548

Witcher Block: C.T. Eldridge’s Drug Store

1913

550

Witcher Block: Swift and Co. Warehouse, wholesale meat

1913

554

Piedmont Hardware, a wholesale supplier loading rail cars in the alley beside it

c. 1904

Highlighted addresses are part of VANTAGE Art Flats today.

The block lies within the Danville Tobacco Warehouse and Residential District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 — about 40 blocks and roughly 585 structures tied to Danville’s bright-leaf tobacco trade. Its factories and auction warehouses date from 1870 to 1910, so the Witcher Block arrived just after the district’s great building boom.

Before & After

On the Map

Sanborn fire-insurance maps recorded every building in town — its size, materials and use. Two editions show the Witcher Block rising from an empty coal yard.

February 1910 Sanborn fire-insurance map of Danville, sheet 5, showing Craghead Street with an open coal and wood yard where the Witcher Block would be built

February 1910 · Sheet 5

Before the Witcher Block. South of Craghead between Newton and Colquhoun, the lot is mostly open and marked “Coal & Wood,” with small frame sheds and an office. A rail spur cuts diagonally across it toward Lynn Street, the creek runs behind, and the Piedmont Hardware building already stands at the Colquhoun corner.

Later Sanborn fire-insurance map of Danville, sheet 7, showing a continuous row of brick buildings along Craghead Street beside the rail spur

Later edition · Sheet 7

After. The Craghead frontage west of the spur is now a continuous row of brick buildings — the Witcher Block. The spur still runs beside the east end of the row, right where Swift’s rail-side loading door sat. Piedmont Hardware holds the corner, and Danville Knitting Mills sits behind the block.

Timeline

150 Years on Craghead

  1. 1876

    John Gibson builds a tobacco prizery at 518 Craghead, one of the block’s first brick buildings.

  2. 1903

    J.G. Witcher opens a wood and coal yard on the 500 block.

  3. c. 1904

    Piedmont Hardware rises at the Colquhoun corner. A Westbrook elevator, made right here in Danville, is installed on the block — it still serves the upper-floor flats.

  4. 1912

    Witcher moves his coal yard to Lynn Street, clearing the lot.

  5. 1913

    The Witcher Block goes up: Virginia City Motor Co., National Biscuit Company, C.T. Eldridge’s Drug Store and the Swift & Co. warehouse.

  6. 1982

    The block is included in the Danville Tobacco Warehouse and Residential District on the National Register of Historic Places.

  7. 2015

    After decades of vacancy, Supply Resources opens at 554 Craghead and the buying of the block begins.

  8. Oct 2016

    Plans for the 500 block are announced, with facade work on 548 and 550 slated for the second phase.

  9. Fall 2018

    The drugstore facade is renovated — “500 Block Restoration: First Chapter.”

  10. Oct 2018

    Hurricane Michael floods the still-vacant buildings with several feet of water.

  11. Oct 2022

    Preservation Virginia recognizes Rick Barker’s River District restoration work.

  12. Mar 20, 2023

    VANTAGE Art Flats opens with nine suites, an art studio and an artist residency.

Sources

  • Danville Register & Bee, “Building-by-building look at renovation project” (Oct 2016), citing Department of the Interior records
  • City of Danville, “Developer reveals plans for 500 block Craghead Street” (Oct 2016)
  • Discover Danville; Chatham Star-Tribune (2023); WSET (2023); WDBJ7 (2016, 2023)
  • River District Association; Rick Barker Properties
  • Virginia Department of Historic Resources; Sanborn fire-insurance maps of Danville

Know more about the Witcher Block, C.T. Eldridge or the block’s early tenants? We’d love to hear from you.

Sleep inside the story

Every suite sits within the walls of the 1913 Witcher Block.

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