Market Square (High Point, North Carolina)
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Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company Complex
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| Location | 305 W. High St., High Point, North Carolina |
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| Coordinates | 35°57′18″N 80°0′33″W / 35.95500°N 80.00917°WCoordinates: 35°57′18″N 80°0′33″W / 35.95500°N 80.00917°W |
| Area | 4 acres (1.6 ha) |
| Built | 1902 |
| Architectural style | Italianate |
| NRHP Reference # | 83001888 |
| Added to NRHP | March 17, 1983 |
Market Square is a furniture showroom complex in High Point, North Carolina, owned by International Market Centers which is the largest building in North Carolina on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and the sixth largest in the United States. Known also as Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company Complex, it was listed on the NRHP under that name. The former manufacturing complex includes the oldest factory building in the city, and its renovation has been credited with making High Point a successful furniture exhibition center. A 16-story addition in 1990 is one of the city's tallest buildings.
Sidney Halstead Tomlinson Sr. started Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company in October 1900 in High Point, North Carolina, with 12 employees. The business was originally chartered under the name of Tomlinson of High Point, and operations started on January 1, 1901, with just 18,000 square feet of space its inaugural year. Sidney Tomlinson's brother Charles F. Tomlinson joined the company as secretary and treasurer in June 1904. The two brothers played major roles in starting the city's YMCA, chamber of commerce and library, and Emerywood Country Club. Tomlinson Chair was one of the first companies to make matching dining room suites. The company's styles included 19th Century French, English and American. Tomlinson was one of the first companies to show furniture in gallery style. According to a 1945 article in North Carolina's The State magazine, "In order to show [their] fine furniture to advantage, Tomlinsons devised displays in gallery form, thus originating a method which has affected the whole furniture industry, as display in galleries has developed into a center about which the manufacture and sales of distinctive furniture now resolve." High Point's success as a furniture manufacturing city was "due in large measure to the success and leadership of the Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company", which was "one of the nation's largest, most profitable and most innovative furniture factories." The term "Tomlinson Quality" was trademarked.
Members of the Lambeth family were among the founders of Standard Chair Company in Thomasville, North Carolina, in 1898; the plant was the oldest in town in 1990. James Erwin Lambeth and his wife Katherine Covington "K.C." Lambeth started Erwin-Lambeth. The company added a new plant in 1947. Rod Lambeth bought Tomlinson Chair in 1987 and Erwin-Lambeth in 1989.
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