Hammond Building

The Hammond Building was a high-rise building completed in 1889 at the southeast corner of Griswold Street and West Fort Street in the financial district of downtown Detroit, Michigan directly across Fort Street from the Detroit City Hall. The 46 m building was designed by George H. Edbrooke, and is considered the first skyscraper in the city, and was the tallest in the state when built. Russell Wheel & Foundry supplied and erected the iron and structural steel for the building. The Hammond Building was demolished in 1956 to make way for the National Bank of Detroit Building, which has since been renamed The Qube. At 12 stories, the steel-framed United Way Community Services Building , originally the Chamber of Commerce Building, qualifies as Detroit's oldest existing skyscraper.
Born in Massachusetts, George H. Hammond moved to Detroit in 1854 and opened a small meat market at the corner of Third and Howard streets. Hammond later bought a refrigerated boxcar patent from William Davis, a Detroit fish dealer. Davis' idea involved using horsehair to line the car. Next to the shell were sheet metal tanks for broken ice and salt. Hammond used Davis' boxcar to successfully move beef to market; the first trial run occurring in May 1869, moving beef from Detroit to Boston, Massachusetts using ice from the Detroit River

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