Jefferson Department Store in Requiem for a Nun (Location)

Like the courthouse at the center of Jefferson's Square, the offices and stores at its circumference were burned by the Union Army during the Civil War, but even before the South's surrender "the gutted walls . . . of the Square had been temporarily roofed and were stores and shops and offices again" (186). The growth of Yoknapatawpha results in new commercial buildings in the town, summed up by the narrative as "the counting-rooms of merchants and bankers and the sanctums of lawyers" (179). In the 20th century the stores are transformed by "sheets of [plate] glass" and the "corpse-glare of fluorescent light" (192). The description of "the stores" and "the offices of the lawyers and doctors and dentists" notes the distinctive "two storey" design of these buildings (31).