ANNISTON, Ala. — A building at 1030 Noble Street in Anniston, constructed in 1895, has been found to contain a grand interior staircase that had been walled off and concealed since the 1950s. The staircase, described by renovation workers as substantial and in better condition than expected, had not been accessible for approximately seventy years. Previous occupants of the building, spanning that entire period, were unavailable for comment.

Workers engaged in a renovation of the building discovered the staircase behind a partition wall on the building's second floor. The staircase, which connects the building's first and second floors in an ornate curved configuration consistent with late-nineteenth-century commercial construction, appears to have been sealed sometime in the early 1950s during a renovation that prioritized what historical records describe as "modernization."

The modernization is now also seventy years old.

"It's a significant architectural find," said one renovation worker, a Black man in his forties who asked that his name not be used. "That staircase is the real thing. Solid. When they covered it up, it just sat there."

He shook his head at some point during this statement.

The building at 1030 Noble Street has had numerous occupants since 1895 and has changed hands multiple times. Its current renovation is ongoing. The building's current owner did not respond to requests for comment.

Dorothy Finch, director of Main Street Anniston, said the discovery was consistent with the character of Noble Street as a corridor of "significant architectural heritage."

"This is the kind of find that reminds us why preservation matters," Finch said. "Seventy years, and it was just waiting."

The staircase is not currently accessible to the public. Whether it will be included in the building's finished renovation has not been determined. It has been there since 1895. It is not going anywhere.