404 South Palafox, "The Bear Block"
This building represents American history, the Industrial Revolution, the advent of the railroad, and Pensacola’s variegated past. Lewis Bear, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria, delivered groceries, and supplies to Pensacola’s bustling wharves using a two-wheeled cart. As business flourished, Bear delivered goods via steamers to towns along the Gulf Coast. Once Pensacola became connected to the interior of the continent by rail, Bear’s market extended to inland communities.
Prosperity requires suitable headquarters, and for his new building, Lewis Bear followed a national trend. He selected a pre-cast sheet metal façade from a mail order catalogue. During the Industrial Revolution, cast iron replaced brick as the primary structural element in building support systems. Iron posts required less floor space and allowed for larger window and door openings. Appealing to Victorian tastes, decorative components of pre-stamped, galvanized sheet metal were durable, economical, and enticing to a small community, such as Pensacola, where professional architects were scarce.
The pillars and ornamentation on the Bear Building may appear to be carved stone and wood, but are in fact galvanized sheet metal. In St. Louis, Missouri, workers from Mesker Brothers Iron loaded the pieces for this building onto a train bound for Pensacola, Florida. By following the manufacturer’s step-by-step instructions, the façade assembly could have gone up in as little as two days. At the turn of the century, Lewis Bear erected a state of the art building in this burgeoning port city. Today, the lovely ornamentation survives relatively unscathed due to the durability of its iron façade installed by the enterprising businessman over one hundred years ago.
