Qualla: Threefoot Building https://qualla.com/threefoot-building en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/threefootbuilding.jpg Qualla: Threefoot Building https://qualla.com/threefoot-building Threefoot Building: Introduction https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name is the first thing that catches you. Threefoot. It sounds like a joke, or a fairy tale, but the story behind it is entirely real. In the mid-19th century, a German-Jewish family named Dreyfuss arrived in Mississippi and decided to make their surname more American. Dreyfuss translates roughly to "three foot" in German, so that is what they became. The Threefoots built a grocery empire in Meridian, and in 1929, they crowned it with a 16-story Art Deco skyscraper that remains the tallest building in the city nearly a century later. The building's life since then reads like a parable of ambition, collapse, neglect, and resurrection, a story inseparable from the city it towers over.

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Image: Michael Barera | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Threefoot Building: An Immigrant Family's Monument https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Kinson356 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Abraham Threefoot established the family's reputation in Meridian in the late 1860s, building a grocery business that his sons, H. Marshall, Kutcher, and Lewis, collectively known as the Threefoot Brothers, expanded into a local institution. By the late 1920s, flush with success,...

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Image: Kinson356 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-an-immigrant-familys-monument.mp3 0:06 2 full Threefoot Building: Finished Just Before the Fall https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Kinson356 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The timing could not have been worse. The Threefoot Building opened just months before the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the nation into the Great Depression. The family's finances, already stretched by the ambitious construction, could not withstand the economic collapse. T...

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Image: Kinson356 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-finished-just-before-the-fall.mp3 0:06 3 full Threefoot Building: America's Most Endangered https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The city purchased the building in 2006 for $1.2 million and attempted a $55 million renovation with Historic Restoration Inc. That deal fell apart in 2009 after a change in city administration. In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Threefoot on its ann...

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Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-americas-most-endangered.mp3 0:06 4 full Threefoot Building: A Second Life at 188 Feet https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Unlisted, CC BY 2.0. Salvation arrived in September 2015, when the Meridian City Council sold the building to Ascent Hospitality Management of Buford, Georgia, for $10,000 cash and a commitment to invest at least $14 million. The renovation took years longer than planned, with architect John Campo pa...

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Image: Unlisted | CC BY 2.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-a-second-life-at-188-feet.mp3 0:06 5 full Threefoot Building: Still Standing Tall https://qualla.com/threefoot-building/ Photo credit Dudemanfellabra at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today the Threefoot Building anchors downtown Meridian's revival. The annual Threefoot Festival, launched in 2002 to draw attention to the building's plight, continues every April on 7th Street near City Hall, featuring local art, children's music programs with the Meridian Symph...

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Image: Dudemanfellabra at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/b/b/threefoot-building-wp/djbb-threefoot-building-still-standing-tall.mp3 0:06 6 full