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Colonel Fletcher Building

building in Downtown San Diego

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2025
Entity authorityQ98113798
Source-derived summary

The Colonel Fletcher Building at 602–632 Broadway, in Core, San Diego, was the site of some of the retail history of San Diego. The building is at the northeast corner of 6th and Broadway; Broadway was originally named D Street.

It was built by "Colonel" Ed Fletcher around 1906–1908 along with Frank Salmans, and designed by architect Edward Quayle of the Quayle Brothers (who would later do the 1935 renovation of the Walker Scott Building). It was remodeled around 2005 by Champion Development Group.

Originally it was a two-story building housing the Barnett-Stine Co. department store. Two more stories were added.

Barnett-Stine went out of business in 1911 and Holzwasser's department store, opened in the building. In 1919, Holzwasser's moved to a new, larger building, now known as the Walker Scott Building. (Holzwasser's would go out of business in 1933 and the first Walker Scott store would open there.)

The Owl Drug Company was then located in the building.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Colonel Fletcher Building” as building in Downtown San Diego. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Colonel, Fletcher and Building.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1906, 1908, 1935, 2005—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Colonel, Fletcher and Building providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Colonel Fletcher Building”, the useful work is to connect “building in Downtown San Diego” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q98113798. Authority coordinates are 32.716, -117.159. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1908, 1935 and 2005.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Colonel Fletcher Building”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Colonel Fletcher Building primary sources, Colonel Fletcher Building archive and Colonel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colonel Fletcher Building”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Colonel Fletcher Building” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.