Shopbell & Company
| Architecture | |
| Founded | 1897 |
| Headquarters | Evansville, Indiana, United States |
Shopbell & Company was an American architectural firm located in Evansville, Indiana in the United States.
The firm was founded as Harris & Shopbell in 1897 and still had that name in 1905. The firm later became Clifford Shopbell & Co. (ca 1910), and later still (ca 1916 - 1925) Shopbell, Fowler & Thole. The partners designed buildings during the 1910s and 1920s, mainly in Evansville, but also elsewhere in Indiana and Kentucky. Many of its works survive and are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Evansville, Indiana historic preservation staff described Clifford Shopbell and Company as "probably the most prominent--or at least the most active" local architectural firm in Evansville's Downtown. They credit several of its works as showing "clear understanding of program and ceremonial demands", note the firm's use of Prairie School design, and commend it for "one creditable Sullivanesque essay," (the Fellwock Auto Company Building). They also note the Indiana Bank and the Masonic Temple in Classical Revival mode, "along with one or two Chicago School buildings".
In 1919, Clifford Shopbell & Co built the Evansville Municipal Market.
By 1905, Harris & Shopbell had already built 9 Carnegie libraries: Shelbyville, Greensburg, Franklin, Seymour, Salem, Princeton, Alt. Vernon and Poseyville, IN, and Henderson, KY; as Clifford Shopbell, the firm went on to build several more. Illinois preservation staff record that Shopbell also built the Illinois libraries at Carmi in 1914, Grayville in 1913, and Marion in 1916. Illinois preservation staff called Clifford Shopbell "the dominant architect of Carnegie libraries in Indiana, with at least fifteen of that state's commissions". The preservation staff state frankly that:
The founding partners were Clifford Shopbell and William J. Harris.
Harris was the senior partner; he was born in Louisville, KY, graduating from the high school there in 1887. After an "apprenticeship" in architecture, Harris opened an office in Evansville in 1895, and formed a partnership with Shopbell in 1897. He was a member of the Freemasons, the Knights of Pythias, and the Elks. He married Bell Hawley in 1894.
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