Downtown Hiram Boasts City's Oldest Building

No one really knows when ’s oldest building was constructed, though one local resident said she thinks the downtown building was erected around in 1895.

“I can’t trace it any further back,” said Kathy Bookout, who owns the building where her business is located. “I think it was here way before then, though.”

And while the identity of the person who had the structure built isn’t known, the building is identical to others built in and Douglasville by Judge Aaron Lafayette Bartlett, Bookout said.

“I do believe this was his first one and he branched out,” she said.

When the two-story structure was built, it had one room upstairs and one room downstairs. An addition to the side of the building was constructed around 1907, making it a six-room structure with three rooms on both floors. From 1915-1918, Hiram United Methodist Church used the upstairs room while its building was being constructed on Church Street.

The first recorded deed for the property was dated Jan. 10, 1918, and lists the owners as Marcus N. Moon, Hiram’s fourth postmaster; William H. Turner, the city’s eighth postmaster; and brothers Robert Malcolm Lee, William F. Lee and Jesse T. Lee, who owned Lee Hardware Company in Dallas. They sold the right side of the building to the Bartlett Masonic Lodge, which the lodge still owns and uses today.

In 1944, Turner’s widow and the Lee brothers sold the other side of the building and the land to Joe M. Harshbarger for $2,100. In 1956, Harshbarger sold 18.4 acres—which included his home near the railroad—to Southern Railway for $20,000. It was at that time that the original depot and several wooden buildings were torn down so that the location of the railroad tracks could be changed. It was also at that time that Harshbarger sold the building to Albert Smith, who served as Hiram’s mayor from 1954-1957. Smith used the building for his electrical supply company.

In 1959, Joe Westbrook purchased the building for $4,000 as an investment, and he later sold the building to Charles Hardy for $10,000. In 1968, Hardy sold the building to Homer Leggett, who was Hiram’s mayor from 1960-1967, and in 1972, Leggett sold the building to E.J. Parson, who ran Town and Country Upholstery.

In 2004, Bookout and her husband purchased the building from Parson’s son. Currently, the Masonic Lodge owns two upstairs rooms and one downstairs room, and the Bookouts own the other three rooms. Their store takes up one room upstairs and downstairs, and they rent out the other downstairs room to the .

The Bookouts also own a in Hiram.

“They have a lot of character, you know the old bricks and the high ceilings,” Bookout said. “We just have always liked old things. When we got a chance to buy the old buildings, we just bought them. We can see this being a little touristy area.”

When the Bookouts bought their portion of the building, they had to put in new heating and air conditioning units, plumbing and electrical systems to bring it up to code. But that’s all the work they’ve done.

“We did not put up any sheetrock,” Bookout said. “We have all exposed brick. It’s just like it was when it was built.”

Upstairs, the original wainscoting is still in place, and some of the original windows are still intact.

“It’s just a neat old building,” Bookout said. “People come in, and they just can’t believe it when they see it.”