Abraham Threefoot established the family's reputation in Meridian in the late 1860s, building a grocery business that his sons, H. Marshall, Kutcher, and Lewis, collectively known as the Threefoot Brothers, expanded into a local institution. By the late 1920s, flush with success, the family commissioned architect Claude H. Lindsley to design an office building that would stand as a symbol of Meridian's growth. Lindsley delivered a masterpiece of Art Deco design: 16 stories of reinforced steel and concrete, clad in white glazed terra cotta on the first two floors and red-brown wire-cut brick above. The exterior features intricate Art Deco mosaic tiles, and the interior preserved marble wainscoting, ornate brass-etched elevator doors, and original light fixtures that still gleam today. The building was completed in 1929, one of only three Art Deco skyscrapers in Mississippi.

The timing could not have been worse. The Threefoot Building opened just months before the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the nation into the Great Depression. The family's finances, already stretched by the ambitious construction, could not withstand the economic collapse. The Threefoot Brothers' business ceased operations. Yet the building itself endured, filled with tenants who rented office space through the Depression, through World War II, and through the postwar decades. It remained a busy commercial hub for more than sixty years. By the 1990s, however, suburban development had lured most tenants to peripheral locations, and the 16-story tower began to empty. Its Art Deco details gathered dust. Water damage crept in. Meridian's proudest building was becoming its most conspicuous ruin.

The city purchased the building in 2006 for $1.2 million and attempted a $55 million renovation with Historic Restoration Inc. That deal fell apart in 2009 after a change in city administration. In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Threefoot on its annual list of America's Most Endangered Places. The designation was a wake-up call. A group of private citizens formed the Threefoot Preservation Society in 2013, organizing weekly cleanups of the building. In April 2014, descendants of the Threefoot family, including Dr. Henry Threefoot, returned for the building's 84th anniversary, the first time in years the public could walk through the ground floor. The moment crystallized what Meridian stood to lose: not just a building, but a connection to its own history.

Salvation arrived in September 2015, when the Meridian City Council sold the building to Ascent Hospitality Management of Buford, Georgia, for $10,000 cash and a commitment to invest at least $14 million. The renovation took years longer than planned, with architect John Campo painstakingly restoring historic elements in cooperation with the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service. Original transom windows, restored wood doors, marble floors, and the iconic brass elevator doors were all preserved. The building reopened as the Threefoot Hotel, a Marriott Tribute Portfolio property with 131 rooms, including 19 suites and two presidential suites with balconies. A rooftop restaurant called The Box Car and a ground-floor eatery named 601 Local brought life back to a building that had stood empty for years. The Threefoot was alive again.

Today the Threefoot Building anchors downtown Meridian's revival. The annual Threefoot Festival, launched in 2002 to draw attention to the building's plight, continues every April on 7th Street near City Hall, featuring local art, children's music programs with the Meridian Symphony Orchestra, and food from local restaurants. The building itself, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and designated a Mississippi Landmark in 2008, has become a destination rather than a relic. From the rooftop bar, guests can look out over a city that nearly let its tallest building crumble. The Threefoot family's name, anglicized from Dreyfuss more than 150 years ago, still presides over the Meridian skyline, a reminder that the most improbable stories are sometimes the ones that endure.