The stylish Courthouse Square neighborhood prospered in the 1880s, as evidenced by this fashionable two-and-one-half-story boardinghouse built by wealthy rancher William C. Child. Between 1888 and 1890, this splendid building displaced an earlier, more modest brick dwelling. A granite-trimmed sandstone façade, projecting bays, metal-faced mansard roof, and colorful stained glass transoms exuberantly express the favored eclecticism of the Victorian era. The Child family maintained the business until circa 1900, when the wife of miner James Piercy, whose large family resided here, was “boarding house keeper.” In 1914, the Piercys moved their residence/rooming house next door and this building became the Cornell Apartments.