History of the Wilder Building

We are located in one of Windham County's most historic buildings.

History of the Wilder's Owners

The Wilder Building was built in 1875 to house a furniture and undertaking business which was succeeded in 1885 by a similar business owned by Emerson and Son. Around the beginning of World War I, Emerson moved to its current location on Elliot Street.

In 1913, Arthur Clapp bought the building and gave it its present name, renaming it after the surname of his mother, Susan Wilder. He established a millinery business and changed the appearance of the first two floors to their current look.

In 1922, the building was bought by John Gale, once referred to as Guilford's largest taxpayer. "No other business building in Brattleboro is in better condition than this one," said an article written about the sale. Just over a year later, in November of 1923, a basement fire inflicted severe damage on the first two floors and caused over $5,000 of damage, a substantial amount at that time. Anxious citizens, eager to fight the fire, crowded onto fire trucks racing toward the building and knocked several professional firefighters off.

Shortly after the fire, the building was restored to its original grandeur and again bustled with street level business. In 1930, Lewis R. Brown, a prominent commercial photographer, moved into one of the building's corner storefronts.

During the early 1930s, "Shorty" Jewett bought the building from attorney Richard Gale. At that time, the building looked much as it does today, with businesses located on the bottom floor and tenants living above. The location once occupied by Downtown Photo was Bailey's Maytag outlet, with Brown's photo shop taking up the other two spaces along the street front.

Jewett sold the property in 1976 to Fred and Linda Noble, representing the partnership of Whetstone Ltd.

National Register of Historic Places

The Wilder Building has been on the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic Places along with many other downtown Brattleboro buildings. It acts as an anchor for the South Main Street corridor and "it really is the gateway to Brattleboro on that end of the community", according to Jane Lendway, Vermont's Historic Preservation officer.

It was not surprising, therefore, that there was such an outpouring of community support after the fire in December, 2004 that gutted the top two floors and almost resulted in the razing of the building. The current restoration has retained the building's beautiful ornamental detail, and "assures the Wilder will continue to provide a vital architectural anchor at the south end of the Main Street downtown commercial core just as it has for the past 130 years" (John Carnahan, Brattleboro Historical Society).