This was home to Loel’s Dime Store for a time. Someone also recalled that it was the G. C. Murphy Store. Regardless of its tenants over the years, it’s one of the most outstanding Art Deco landmarks in South Georgia.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 
Why is it called the Lockeby building?
I had my but beat when I was 12 yrs old for stealing a candy bar from here. After the feeling returned to my behind, my father took me down to the store so I could confess my sins, pay for the candy bar and help out in the store for a Saturday. You can be dang sure that never happened again.
I think it was Lowell’s though. I remember when it became Murphy’s…my friend Diane Downer’s father was the manager.
Unless they moved you are mistaken on it being mccrorys. That store was actually in the next block I know his because my grandmother worked there and later owned a business in the same building he door handles on the front door still have mccrorys carved / etched in them
I remember it as the G.C. Murphy store.
Before it was Loel’s, the building housed McCrory’s Dime Store. My mother, Ethel Elder Hutchinson was the bookkeeper there for several years, and her sister, Mary Will Elder McGriff also worked there.
Thank you for sharing your memories. Its a great building; we lived upstairs in the “office”. We converted it to an upscale apartment. It felt like being in New York City. The large warehouse upstairs was my studio. There was always a welcoming sweet feel to the space.
Sometimes, buildings and the people in it teach you lessons you will never forget. Being a typical 12 year old, I “borrowed” a piece of candy from the store without the owners permission. When dad found out, he made me go to the owner and confess as well as pay for the candy and work there 6 weekends to pay them back. A lesson that has never left me.
When I was a teenager in the mid-fifties, I worked in Loel’s Dime Store which was in this building. Each counter in the store sold different items; I worked on the stationery counter. The clerk was in the middle of a rectangular sales counter and went up to each customer who stopped at the counter and said, “May I help you, please?” As was stated above, I never paid much attention to the design of the whole building; it’s really beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your memories, Joyce! Glad to know a name for the business, at last…
My husband, Richard and I opened a business in this building 2000-2004, The Banana Tree. We occupied more than 1/2 the street level and the entire top floor that was a gallery, art studio, and private apartment looking over mainstreet. I really felt like I was living in New York. After a sudden illness that ended with visual impairment and progressive blindness, we were forced to close. Now a wonderful little baby/children shop is there. We visited only a few weeks ago, and the building still maintains it’s art deco style.
I’ve passed by this building for decades, and never saw the design well until you posted this image. Thanks. You’ve shown, and proven, that our communities are loaded with well-planned, designed and built buildings – that have definitely stood the test of time.